50th  Congress,  ) 
2d  Session,  i 


SENATE. 


(  Kept.  2543, 
\     Part  2. 


IN  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


February  22,  1889.— Ordered  to  be  printed. 


Mr.  CocKRELL,  from  the  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage,  submitted  the 

following 

VIEWS  OF  THE  MINORITY: 

»  [To  accompany  Report  No.  2543.  ] 

The  undersigned,  minority  of  the  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage,  dis- 
seut  from  the  views  of  the  majority. 

In  the  Forty-ninth  Congress  the  minority  of  the  committee  submit- 
ted the  following  views : 

(Senate  Report  No.  70,  part  2,  Forty-nintli  Congress,  first  session.] 

The  undersigned,  minority  of  the  Committee  of  the  Senate  on  Woman  Suffrage,  to 
whom  was  referred  Senate  resolution  No.  5,  proposing  an  amendment  to  the  Consti- 
tutiou  of  the  United  States  to  grant  the  riglit  to  vote  to  the  women  of  the  United 
States,  beg  leave  to  submit  the  following  minority  report,  consisting  of  extracts  from 
a  little  volume  entitled  Letters  from  a  Chimney  Corner,"  written  by  a  highly  cul- 
tivated lady,  Mrs.  C.  F.  Corbin,  of  Chicago.  This  gifted  lady  has  discussed  the 
question  with  so  much  clearness  and  force  that  we  make  no  apology  to  the  Senate 
for  substituting  quotations  from  her  book  in  place  of  anything  we  might  produce. 
We  quote  first  from  chapter  3,  which  is  entitled,  "The  value  of  suffrage  to  women 
muc^  overestimated." 

The  fair  authoress  says : 

*'  If  women  were  to  be  considered  in  their  highest  and  final  estate  as  merely  indi- 
vidual beings,  and  if  the  right  to  the  ballot  were  to  be  conceded  to  man  as  an  indi- 
vidual, it  might  perhaps  be  logically  argued  that  women  also  possessed  the  inherent 
right  to  vote.  But  from  the  oldest  times,  and  through  all  the  history  of  the  race,  has 
run  the  glimmer  of  an  idea,  more  or  less  distinguishable  in  difierent  ages  and  under 
different  cij^cumstauces,  that  neither  man  nor  woman,  is,  as  such,  individual ;  that 
neither  being  is  of  itself  a  whole,  a  unit,  but  each  requires  to  be  supplemented  by  the 
other  before  its  true  structural  integrity  can  be  achieved.  Of  this  idea,  the  science  of 
botany  furnishes  the  most  perfect  illustration.  The  stamens  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
ovary  aud  pistil  on  the  other,  may  indeed  reside  in  one  blossom,  wJiich  then  exists  in 
a  married  or  reproductive  state.  But  equally  well,  the  stamens  or  male  organs  may 
reside  in  one  plant,  aud  the  ovary  and  pistil  orfemale  organs  may  reside  in  another.  In 
that  case,  the  two  plants  are  required  to  make  one  structurally  complete  organization. 
Each  is  but  half  a  i)lant,  an  incomplete  individual  by  itself.  The  life  principle  of 
each  must  be  united  to  that  of  the  other ;  the  twain  must  be  indeed  one  flesh  belore 
the  organization  is  either  structurally  or  functionally  conii)lete. 

"Now,  everywhere  throughout  nature,  to  the  male  and  female  ideal,  certain  dis- 
tinct powers  and  properties  belong.  The  lines  of  demarkation  are  not  always  clear, 
not  always  straight  lines;  they  are  frequently  wavering,  shadowy,  and  difficult  to 
follow ;  yet  on  the  whole,  wherever  physical  strength,  personal  aggressiveness,  the 
intellectual  sc^ope  and  vigor  which  manage  vast  material  enterprises  are  emphasized, 
there  the  masculine  ideal  is  present;  ou  the  other  hand,  wherever  refiiuMiuMit,  tender- 
ness, delicacy,  sprightliness,  si)iritua.l  acumen  and  force  are  to  the  fore,  tlune  the  feuii- 
niue  ideal  is  represented,  and  these  terms  will  be  found  nearly  enough  for  all  i)ructical 
purposes  to  represent  the  dittering  endowments  of  actual  men  and  women.  Dilferent 
powers  suggest  different  activities,  and  under  the  division  of  labor  here  indicatetl  the 
control  of  the  State,  legislation,  the  power  of  the  ballot  would  seem  to  fall  to  the 
share  of  man.    Nor  does  this  decision  carry  with  it  any  injustice,  any  robbery  of  just 


\ 

2  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

or  natural  right  to  woman.  In  her  hands  is  placed  amoral  and  spiritual  power  far 
greater  than  the  power  of  the  ballot.  In  her  married  or  reproductive  state,  the  form- 
ing and  shaping  of  human  souls  in  their  most  plastic  period  is  her  destiny.  Nor  do 
her  labors  or  her  responsibilities  end  with  infancy  or  childhood.  Throughout  his 
entire  course,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  man  is  ever  under  the  moral  and  spiritual 
influence  and  control  of  woman.  With  this  power  goes  a  tremendous  responsibility 
for  its  true  management  and  use.  If  woman  shall  ever  rise  to  the  full  height  of  her 
power  and  privileges  in  this  direction,  she  will  have  enough  of  the  world's  work  upon 
her  hands  without  attempting  I'egislation. 

"  It  may  be  argued  that  the  possession  of  civil  power  confers  dignity,  and  is  of  itself 
a  re-enforcement  of  whatever  natural  power  an  individual  may  possess  ;  but  the  dig- 
nity of  womanhood,  when  it  is  fully  understood  and  appreciated,  needs  no  such  re-en- 
forcement, nor  are  the  peculiar  needs  of  woman  such  as  the  law  can  reach.  When- 
ever laws  are  needed  for  the  protection  of  her  legal  status  and  rights,  there  has 
been  found  to  be  little  difficulty  in  obtaining  them  by  means  of  the  votes  of  men ;  but 
the  deeper  and  more  vital  needs  of  woman  and  of  society  are  those  which  are  outside 
altogether  of  the  pale  of  the  law,  and  which  can  only  be  reached  by  the  moral  forces 
lodged  in  the  hands  of  woman  herself,  acting  in  an  enlarged  and  general  capacity. 
For  instance,  whenever  a  man  or  woman  has  been  wronged  in  marriage,  the  law  may, 
indeed,  step  in  with  a  divorce ;  but  does  that  divorce  give  back  to  either  party  the  dream 
of  love,  the  happy  home,  the  prattle  of  children,  and  the  sweet  outlook  for  future  years 
which  were  destroyed  by  that  wrong?  It  is  not  a  legal  power  which  is  needed  in 
this  case ;  it  is  a  moral  power,  which  shall  prevent  the  wrong,  or,  if  committed,  shall 
induce  penitence,  forgiveness,  a  purer  life,  and  the  healing  of  the  wound.  This 
power  has  been  lodged  by  the  Creator  in  the  hands  of  woman  herself,  and  if  she  has 
not  been  rightly  trained  to  use  it  there  is  no  redress  for  her  at  the  hands  of  the  law. 
The  law  alone  can  never  compel  men  to  respect  the  chastity  of  women.  They  must 
first  recognize  its  value  in  themselves,  and  by  their  own  courageous  and  upright  liv- 
ing— by  living  up  to  the  high  level  of  their  duties  as  maidens,  wives,  and  mothers — 
they  must  impress  men  with  the  beauty  and  sacredness  of  purity,  and  then  whatever 
laws  are  necessary  and  available  for  its  protection  will  be  easily  obtained,  with  a 
certainty,  also,  that  they  can  b*e  enforced,  because  the  moral  sentiments  of  men  will 
be  enlisted  in  their  support. 

"Privileges  bring  responsibilities,  and  before  women  clamor  for  more  work  to  do, 
it  were  better  that  they  should  attend  more  thoughtfully  to  the  duties  which  lie  all 
about  them,  in  the  home  and  social  circle.  Until  society  is  cleansed  of  the  moral  foul- 
ness which  infests  it,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  lies  beyond  the  reach  of  civil  law,  wom- 
en have  no  call  to  go  forth  into  wider  fields,  claiming  to  be  therein  the  rightful  and 
natural  purifiers.  Let  them  first  make  the  home  sweet  and  pure,  and  the  streams 
which  flow  therefrom  will  sweeten  and  purify  all  the  rest. 

''As  between  the  power  of  the  ballot  and  this  moral  force  exerted  by  women  there 
can  not  be  an  instant's  doubt  as  to  the  choice.  Nor  is  it  very  plain  to  be  seen  how 
women  can  yield  both.  It  is  a  question  of  having  your  cake  and  eating  it  too.  In 
natural  refinement  and  elevation  of  character  the  ideal  woman  stands  a  step  above 
the  ideal  man.  If  she  descends  from  this  fortunate  position  to  take  part  in  the  coarse 
scramble  for  material  power,  what  chance  will  she  have  as  against  man's  aggressive 
forces;  and  what  can  she  possibly  gain  that  she  can  not  win  more  directly,  more  ef- 
fectually, and  with  far  more  dignity  and  glory  to  herself  by  the  exerci|e  of  her  own 
womanly  prerogatives  ?  She  has,  under  God,  the  formation  and  rearing  of  men  in  her 
own  l^auds.  If  they  do  not  turn  out  in  the  end  to  be  men  who  respect  woman,  who 
will  protect  and  defend  her  in  the  exercise  of  every  one  of  her  God-given  rights,  it 
is  because  she  h^s  failed  in  her  duty  toward  them  ;  has  not  been  taught  to  compre- 
hend her  own  power,  and  to  use  it  to  its  best  ends.  P^or  women  to  seek  to  control 
men  by  the  power  of  suffrage  is  like  David  essaying  the  armor  of  Saul.  What  woman 
needs  is  her  own  sheepskin  sling  and  her  few  smooth  pebbles  from  the  bed  of  the 
brook,  and  then  go  forth  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts,  and  a  victory  as  sure 
and  decisive  as  that  of  the  shepherd  of  Israel  awaits  her." 

Again,  in  chapter  4,  entitled  "The  power  of  the  home,"  the  author  says: 

"It  is  perhaps  of  minor  consequence  that  women  should  have  felt  themselves  eman- 
cipated from  buttons  and  bread-making  ;  but  that  they  should  have  learned  to  look 
in  the  least  degree  slightingly  upon  the  great  duties  of  women  as  lovers  of  husbands, 
as  lovers  of  children,  as  the  fountain  and  source  of  what  is  highest  and  purest  and 
holiest,  and  not  less  of  what  is  homely  and  comfortable  and  satisfying  in  the  home, 
is  a  serious  misfortune.  Women  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  lost,  perhaps,  what  they 
have  so  rarely  in  any  age  generally  attained,  that  dignity  which  knows  how  to  com- 
mand, united  with  a  sweetness  which  seems  all  the  while  to  be  complying  ;  the  power, 
supple  and  strong,  which  rescues  the  character  of  the  ideal  woman  from  the  charge  of 
weakness,  and  at  the  same  time  exhibits  its  utmost  of  grace  and  fascination.  But 
that  of  late  years  the  gift  has  not  been  cultivated,  has  not,  in  fact,  thrown  out  such 
natural  off-shoots  as  gave  grace  and  glory  to  some  earlier  social  epochs,  must  be  evi- 
dent, it  would  seem,  to  any  thoughtful  observer. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


3 


"  If,  instead  of  striviDg  to  grasp  more  material  power,  women  would  pursue  those 
studies  and  investigations  wLich  tend  to  make  tliem  familiar  with  what  science 
teaches  concerning  the  influence  of  the  mother  and  the  home  upon  the  chikl,  of  how 
completely  the  Creator  in  giving  the  genesis  of  the  human  race  into  the  hands  of 
woman  has  made  her  not  only  capable  of,  but  responsibh^  for,  th<;  regeneration  of 
the  world;  if  they  would  reflect  that  nature  by  making  man  the  bond-slave  of  his 
passions,  has  put  the  lever  in  the  hands  of  women  by  which  she  may  control  him,  and 
if  they  would  learn  to  use  these  powers  not  as  bad  women  do,  for  vile  and  selhsh  ends, 
but  as  the  mothers  of  the  race  ought,  for  pure  and  holy  and  redenii)tive  x>"rposes, 
then  would  the  sphere  of  women  be  enlarged  to  some  purpose ;  the  atmosphere  of  the 
home  would  be  purified  and  vitalized,  and  the  work  of  redeeming  man  from  his  vices 
would  be  hopefully  begun." 

From  chapter  1  we  make  the  following  extract : 

''Is  this  emancipation  of  women,  if  that  is  the  proper  phrase  for  it,  a  fmal  end,  or 
only  the  means  to  an  end  ?  Are  women  to  be  as  the  outcome  of  it  emancipated 
from  their  world-old  "sphere"  of  marriage  and  motherhood  and  control  of  the  moral 
and  spiritual  destinies  of  the  race,  or  are  they  to  be  emancipated,  in  order  to  the 
proper  fulfillment  of  these  functions  ?  It  would  seem  that  most  of  the  advanced 
women  of  the  day  would  answer  the  first  of  these  questions  affirmatively.  Women, 
I  think  it  has  been  authoritatively  stated,  are  to  be  emancipated  in  order  that  they 
may  become  fully  developed  human  beings,  something  broader  and  stronger,  some- 
thing higher  and  finer,  more  delicate,  more  esthetic,  more  generally  rarefied  and 
sublimated  than  the  old-fashioned  type  of  womanhood,  the  wife  and  mother.  And 
the  result  of  the  woman  movement  seems  more  or  less  in  a  line  thus  far  with  this 
theoretic  aim.  Of  advanced  women  a  less  proportion  are  inclined  to  marry  than  of 
the  old-fashioned  type ;  of  these  who  do  marry,  a  great  proportion  are  restless  in 
marriage  bonds  or  seek  release  from  them,  while  of  those  who  do  remain  in  married 
life  many  bear  no  children,  and  few  indeed  become  mothers  of  large  families.  The 
women's  vitality  is  concentrated  in  the  brain,  and  fructifies  more  in  intellectual  than 
X)hysical  forms.  Now  women  who  do  not  marry  are  one  of  two  things,  either  they  be- 
long to  a  class  which  we  shrink  from  naming,  or  they  become  old  maids.  An  old  nuiid 
may  be  in  herself  a  very  useful  and  commendable  person,  a  valuable  member  of  so- 
ciety— many  are  all  this — but  she  has  still  this  sad  drawback,  she  cau^not  perpetuate 
herself;  and  since  all  history  and  observation  go  to  prove  that  the  great  final  end  of 
creation,  whatever  it  may  be,  can  only  be  achieved  through  the  perpetuity  and  in- 
creasing progress  of  the  race,  it  follows  that  unmarried  woman  is  not  the  mo^t  neces- 
sary, the  indispensable  type  of  woman.  If  there  were  no  other  class  of  females  left 
upon  the  earth  but  the  women  who  do  not  bear  children,  then  the  world  would  be  a 
failure,  creation  would  be  nonplused. 

"If  then,  the  movement  for  the  emancipation  of  woman  has  for  its  final  end  the 
making  of  never  so  fine  a  quality,  never  so  sublimated  a  sort  of  non-chil^-bearing 
women,  it  is  an  absurdity  upon  the  face  of  it. 

"  From  the  stand-point  of  the  Chimney  Corner,  it  appears  that  too  many  even  of  the 
most  gifted  and  liberal-minded  of  the  leaders  in  the  woman's  rights  movement  have 
not  yet  discovered  this  flaw  in  their  logic.  They  seek  to  individualize  women,  not 
seeing  apparently  that  individualized  women,  old  maids,  and  individualized  men, 
old  bachelors,  though  they  may  be  useful  in  certain  minor  ways,  are,  after  all,  to 
speak  with  the  relentlcssness  of  science,  fragmentary  and  abortive  so  far  as  the  gn-at 
scheme  of  the  universe  is  concerned,  and  often  become  in  addition  seriously  detri- 
mental to  the  right  progress  of  society.  The  man  and  woman  united  in  marriage  form 
the  unit  of  the  race;  they  alone  rightly  wield  the  self-perpetuating  i)Ower  upon  which 
all  human  progress  depends;  without  which  the  race  itself  must  perish,  the  universe 
become  null. 

"  Reaching  this  point  of  the  argument,  it  becomes  evident  that  while  the  devehtp- 
ment  of  the  individual  man  or  the  individual  woman  is  no  doubt  of  great  im[)ortanco, 
since,  as  Margaret  Fuller  has  justly  said,  "There  must  be  units  before  there  can  be 
union,"  it  is  chiefly  so  because  of  theirrelation  to  each  other.  Their  characters  should 
be  developed  with  a  view  to  their  future  union  with  each  other,  and  not  to  be  indo- 
l)endent  of  it.  When  the  leaders  of  the  woman's  movement  fully  realize  this,  and 
shape  their  course  accordingly,  they  will  have  made  a  great  advance,  both  in  the 
value  of  their  work  and  in  its  claim  upon  public  sympathy.  Moreover,  they  will  ha  ve 
reached  a  point  from  which  it  will  bo  possible  for  them  to  investigate,  reform,  and 
idealize  the  relations  existing  between  men  and  women,  as  it  is  now  irai)os8ible  for 
them  to  do,  and  to  meet  in  a  practical  manner  the  question  which  more  than  all  others 
appalls  the  philanthropist  and  staggers  the  practical  reformer,  namely,  the  preven- 
tion and  cure  of  licentiousness." 

Wo  make  a  few  additional  quotations  from  the  appendix,  entitled,  "The  relation 
of  woman  to  the  state;  practical  suggestions  :" 

"A  publication  of  the  foregoing  letters  in  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean  brought  out  so 
many  protests  from  the  woman  suffragists  that  in  submitting  the  letters  to  the  i>ublic 


4 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


the  writer  feels  constrained  to  add  a  few  words  concerning  what  appears  to  her  to  be 
the  true  place  of  woman  in  the  state. 

"  To  say  that  the  power  of  woman  is  essentially  a  moral  one  does  not  necessarily  im- 
ply that  all  women  are  more  moral  than  all  men,  nor  even  that  in  any  given  commu- 
nity a  majority  of  women,  if  allowed  to  vote,  would  ho  found  upon  the  side  of  meas- 
ures proposed  in  the  interest  of  abstract  moral  excellence.  In  most  communities, 
notably  in  large  cities,  where  prostitutes  abound,  and  where  thieves  and  gamblers 
and  saloon-keepers,  and  the  vicious  classes  generally  have  their  multitude  of  female 
adherents,  and  where,  on  the  other  hand,  frivolity  and  the  fashionable  forms  of  vice 
absorb  so  many  women,  it  may  well  be  doubted  if  upon  any  great  moral  question  the 
majority  of  women  would  be  found  on  the  side  of  even  practical  morality. 

"One  strong  assertion — it  can  hardly  be  called  an  argument — of  the  woman  suffra- 
gists is,  that  if  the  wives  and  mothers  of  any  community  were  allowed  to  vote  they 
would  close  saloons,  brothels,  and  gambling  houses.  But  setting  aside  the  question 
of  whether  the  absolute  closing  of  these  places  would  be,  on  the  whole,  a  gain  to  so- 
ciety in  its  present  condition  of  impurity ;  whether  the  best  that  can  be  done  is  not 
to  heal  the  open  ulcer,  which  indicates  and  at  the  same  time  gives  relief  to  the  in- 
famous disease  within,  but  rather  so  to  restrain  and  circumscribe  it  that  it  may  not 
spread  the  plague  by  its  foul  inoculation.  Setting  this  question  wholly  aside,  it  is  by 
no  means'clear  to  the  minds  of  some  who  have  given  the  matter  deep  and  i)rayerful 
consideration,  that  the  majority  of  all  the  women  of  any  community  ia  which  vice  is 
openly  rampant  would  vote  for  such  suppression.  The  good  wives  aud  mothers,  the 
pure  and  true  women  generally,  of  any  community,  are,  indeed,  invested  with  a  moral 
force,  which  if  intelligently  wielded,  is  well  nigh  supreme  ;  but  if  it  is  not  a  force  of 
numbers,  like  that  which  prevails  in  the  political  world.  As  a  voter,  a  good  woman 
has  no  more  power  in  the  state  than  a  bad  one.  At  the  polls  the  woman  of  gifts, 
culture,  of  eminent  social  position,  i)uts  herself  upon  an  absolute  equality  with  the 
vilest  drab  in  the  streets.  This  fact,  as  expressed  in  manhood  suffrage — the  absolute 
political  equality  of  all  male  voters — already  constitutes  in  the  eyes  of  many  wise 
statesmen  an  imminent  and  deadly  peril  to  the  Republic ;  a  peril  which  would  not 
be  in  any  wise  lessened,  but  greatly  complicated  by  the  admission  of  all  women  to  the 
privilege  of  the  ballot.  In  England,  where  suffrage  is  bestowed  by  classes,  the  fyrce 
of  this  objection  is  greatly  diminished.  Much  as  some  female  leaders  of  opinion  in 
that  country  may  desire  the  parliamentary  vote  for  themselves,  I  greatly  doubt  if  they 
would  rejoice  to  see  it  bestowed  upon  the  women  of  St.  Giles  and  Billingsgate. 

Ought  then  this  moral  power,  which  resides  in  the  good  and  true  women  of,  any 
community,  to  be  excluded  from  influence  upon  the  state  ?  By  no  means.  Probably 
few  women  have  deeper,  more  positive,  or  more  earnest  convictions  on  this  subject 
thau  the  writer  of  these  lines.  But  let  us  examine  briefly  the  foundations  upon  which 
the  state  rests. 

One  of  the  wisest  and  purest  of  European  republicans,  Joseph  Mazzini,  is  recorded 
as  believing  that  not  right,  but  duty,  is  the  watchword  of  human  progress.  Not  an 
unconditional  liberty  is  the  fouudation  of  a  true  state,  but  the  restrained  and  orderly 
exercise  of  proper  individual  prerogatives. 

"  Long  before  you  can  predicate  political  duties  for  woman,  you  must  recognize  her 
duty  as  wife  and  mother;  as  the  queen  regnant  of  the  home,  as  the  fountain  of  order, 
justice,  virtue,  and  charity,  the  giver  of  life,  and  the  former  of  character  for  future 
generations.  Heaven's  supreme^excellences  center  around  and  find  their  best  earthly 
expression  in  the  ideal  woman  and  her  work. 

"  To  this  high  office  the  duty  of  man  is  subordinate.  He  is  to  furnish  the  mate-- 
rial  supplies  by  means  of  which  the  great  work  of  re-creation  may  be  carried  on.  It 
is  his  duty  to  support  the  family  by  his  labor,  to  give  it  the  strength  of  his  counsels, 
and  the  protection  of  his  valor.  Few  women  who  are  good,  and  true,  aud  faithful 
mothers,  would  not  resent  the  idea  that  it  was  their  duty,  also,  to  furnish  the  mate- 
rial supplies  which  nourish  the  outward  form  or  body  of  the  home. 

"  '  No,'  they  would  say,  and  say  rightly  ;  '  We  peril  our  lives  for  our  children,  we 
give  our  days  and  nights  to  care  and  anxiety,  to  burdens  of  pain  and  jierplexity, 
which  men  know  nothing  of.  It  is  their  duty  to  minister  to  the  material  necessities 
of  ourselves  and  our  children,  without  toil  or  trouble  on  our  part.' 

"  Let  us  carry  a  similar  division  of  labor  into  the  state.  Does  not  the  voice  of  the 
true  woman  respond,  '  We  furnish  citizens,  bone  of  our  bone,  aud  flesh  of  our  flesh; 
we  train  them  up  to  manhood  in  all  manly,  noble  virtues  ;  we  give  them  ouri)atience 
our  faith,  our  watchfulness,  our  prayers,  and  it  is  little  to  ask  in  return  that  the  state, 
which  is  managed  by  them,  shall  be  just  and  impartial,  nay,  generous  and  munificent, 
to  us,  who  trust  our  all  in  their  hands.'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  women  have  too  seldom 
put  forth  such  appeals  as  this,  but  whenever  aud  wherever  they  have  done  so,  at  least 
in  this  American  Republic,  they  have  always  found  a  respectful  hearing  and  a  gen- 
erous response ;  and  the  simple  and  sole  reason  why  women  are  not  endowed  with 
suffrage  to-day  is,  that  the  majority  of  the  wives  and  mothers,  and  good  women  gen- 
erally, of  this  land,  have  never  asked  for  nor  desired  it, 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


5 


"Civil  law  is  the  growth  of  the  ages,  and,  like  all  other  imnieraorial  institutions, 
it  cherishes  many  imperfections  ;  but  these  are  being  removed  as  rapidly,  perhaps,  as 
is  consistent  with  true  progress.  That  there  still  remain  laws  upon  the  statute;  books 
which  are  relics  of  barbarism,  and  bear  hardly  upon  woman,  is  true  enough;  l)ut  let 
the  women  of  any  community  unite  to  deline  these  wrongs  and  suggest  the  redress, 
and  there  will  be  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  it,  not  in  spite  of  men,  but  by  means  of 
them.  If  a  woman  wants  a  new  house  she  does  not  go  at  work  with  a  pick  and  spade 
and  trowel  to  build  it  herself;  she  simply  sets  the  men  about  it,  aud  if  aho  is  worthy 
of  a  home  at  all,  she  has  her  parlor  and  kitchen  and  closets  just  where  she  wants 
them,  too.  If  she  desires  civil  or  political  improvements,  let  her  go  about  the  work 
in  the  same  fashion. 

'*  It  is  this  united  action,  the  inspiration  coming  from  women,  the  execution  from 
men,  and  the  two  forces  working  harmoniously  and  lovingly  together,  not  pulling 
awkwardly  and  angrily  apart,  that  is  destined  to  save  the  state  aud  save  the  world." 

The  above  quotations,  from  the  valuable  little  book  aheady  mentioned  by  our 
gifted  authoress,  are  so  appropriate,  so  Avell  and  so  forcibly  expressed,  that  we  cheer- 
fully, as  already  stated,  substitute  them  in  place  of  any  production  of  our  own,  and 
respectfully  commend  them  to  the  Senate  and  to  the  country  as  worthy  of  careful  con- 
sideration and  reflection. 

We  also  append  hereto  the  minority  report  submitted  by  the  undersigned  in  the 
Forty-eighth  Congress. 

Joseph  E.  Brown, 
f.  m.  cockrell. 


f Senate  Report  No.  399,  Part  2,  Forty-eighth  Congress,  first  session.] 

The  undersigned  minority  of  the  Committee  of  the  Senate  on  Woman  SufiVage,  to 
whom  was  referred  S.  Res.  19,  proposing  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  granting  the  right  to  vote  to  the  women  of  the  United  States,  beg 
leave  to  submit  the  following  report : 

The  undersigned  believe  that  the  Creator  intended  that  the  sphere  of  the  mjiles 
and  females  of  our  race  should  be  different,  and  that  their  duties  and  obligatious, 
while  they  differ  materially,  are  equally  important  and  equally  honorable,  and  that 
each  sex  is  equally  well  qualified  by  natural  endowments  for  the  discharge  of  the 
important  duties  which  pertain  to  each,  and  that  each  sex  is  equally  competent  to 
discharge  those  duties. 

We  find  an  abundance  of  evidence  both  in  the  works  of  nature  and  in  the  Divine 
revelation  to  establish  the  fact  that  the  family  properly  regulated  is  the  foundation 
and  pillar  of  society,  and  is  the  most  important  of  human  institutions. 

In  the  Divine  economy  it  is  provided  that  the  man  shall  be  the  head  of  the  family, 
and  shall  take  upon  himself  the  solemn  obligation  of  providing  for  and  protecting 
the  family. 

Man,  by  reason  of  his  physical  strength  and  his  other  endowments  and  faculties, 
is  qualified  for  the  discharge  of  those  duties  that  require  strength  and  ability  to  com- 
bat with  the  sterner  realities  aud  difficulties  of  life.  The  different  classes  of  outdoor 
labor,  which  require  physical  strength  and  endurance,  are  by  nature  assigned  to  man, 
the  head  of  the  family,  as  part  of  his  task.  He  discharges  such  labora  as  require 
greater  physical  endurance  aud  strength  than  the  female  sex  are  usually  found  to  pos- 
sess. It  is  not  only  his  duty  to  provide  for  and  protect  the  family,  but  as  a  member 
of  the  community  it  is  also  his  duty  to  discharge  the  laborious  and  responsible  obliga- 
tious which  the  family  owe  to  the  state,  and  which  obligation  must  be  discharged  by 
the  head  of  the  family,  until  the  male  members  of  the  family  have  grown  up  to  man- 
hood and  are  able  to  aid  in  the  discharge  of  those  obligations,  when  it  becomes  their 
duty  in  their  turn  to  take  charge  of  and  rear  each  a  family,  for  which  he  is  responsi- 
ble. 

Among  other  duties  which  the  head  of  the  family  owes  to  the  state  is  military  duty 
in  time  of  war,  which  he,  when  able-bodied,  is  able  to  discharge,  and  which  the  fe- 
male members  of  the  family  are  unable  to  discharge. 

He  is  also  under  obligation  to  discharge  jury  duty,  and  by  himself  or  his  represent- 
ative to  discharge  his  part  of  the  labor  necessary  to  construct  and  keep  in  proper  order 
roads,  bridges,  streets,  and  all  grades  of  public  highways.  Aud  in  this  progressive 
age  upon  the  male  sex  is  devolved  the  duty  of  constructing  our  railroads,  and  the 
engines  and  other  rolling-stock  with  which  they  are  operated,  of  building,  equipping, 
and  launching  shipping  and  other  water-craft  of  ever^'^  character  necessary  for  the 
transportation  of  passengers  and  freight  upon  our  rivers,  our  lakes,  and  upon  the 
high  seas. 

The  labor  in  our  fields,  sowing,  cultivating,  and  reaping  crops  must  be  discharged 
mainly  by  the  male  sex,  as  the  female  sex,  for  want  of  physical  strength,  are  gener- 
ally unable  to  discharge  these  duties. 


6 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


As  it  is  the  duty  of  the  male  sex  to  perform  the  obligations  to  the  state,  to  society, 
and  to  the  family,  already  mentioned,  with  numerous  others  that  might  be  enumer- 
ated, it  is  also  their  duty  to  aid  in  the  government  of  the  State,  which  is  simply  a 
great  aggregation  of  families.  Society  can  not  be  preserved,  nor  can  the  people  be 
prosperous  without  good  government.  The  government  of  our  country  is  a  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  and  it  becomes  necessary  that  that  class  of  people  upon  whom  the 
responsibility  rests  should  assemble  together  and  consider  and  discuss  the  great  ques- 
tions of  governmental  policy  which  from  time  to  time  are  presented  for  their  decision. 
This  often  requires  the  assembling  of  caucuses  in  the  night-time  as  well  as  public  as- 
semblages in  the  day-time.  It  is  a  laborious  task,  for  which  the  male  sex  is  infinitely 
better  fitted  than  the  female  sex,  and  after  proper  cor  sideration  and  discussion  of  the 
measures  that  may  divide  the  country  from  time  to  time,  the  duty  devolves  upon  those 
who  are  responsible  for  the  Government,  at  times  and  places  to  be  fixed  by  law,  to 
meet  and  by  the  ballot  to  decide  the  great  questions  of  government  upon  which  the 
prosperity  of  the  country  depends.  These  are  some  of  the  active  and  sterner  duties 
of  life  to  which  the  male  sex  is  by  nature  better  fitted  than  the  female  sex.  If,jn 
carrying  out  the  policy  of  the  state  on  great  measures  adjudged  vital,  such  policy 
should  lead  to  war,  either  foreign  or  domestic,  It  would  seem  to  follow  very  naturally 
that  those  who  have  been  responsible  for  the  mauagemement  of  the  state  should  be 
the  parties  to  take  the  hazards  and  hardships  of  the  struggle.  Here,  again,  man  is 
fitted  by  nature  for  the  discharge  of  the  duty  ;  woman  is  unfit  for  it. 

So  much  for  some  of  the  duties  imposed  upon  tbe  male  sex,  for  the  discharge  of 
which  the  Creator  has  endowed  them  with  proper  strength  and  faculties. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Creator  has  assigned  to  woman  very  laborious  and  responsi- 
ble duties,  by  no  means  less  important  than  those  imposed  upon  the  male  sex,  though 
entirely  diflerent  in  their  character.  In  the  family  she  is  a  queen.  She  alone  is  fitted 
for  the  discharge  of  the  sacred  trust  of  wife  and  the  endearing  relation  of  mother. 
While  the  man  is  contending  with  the  sterner  duties  of  life,  the  whole  time  of  the 
noble,  att'ectionate,  and  true  woman  is  required  in  the  discharge  of  the  delicate  and 
difficult  duties  assigned  her  in  the  family  circle,  in  her  church  relations,  and  in  the 
society  where  her  lot  is  cast.  When  the  husband  returns  home  weary  and  worn  in 
the  discharge  of  the  difficult  and  laborious  task  assigned  him,  he  finds  in  the  good 
wife  solace  and  consolation  which  is  nowhere  else  afforded.  If  he  is  despondent  and 
distressed,  she  cheers  his  heart  with  words  of  kindness ;  if  he  is  sick  or  languishing, 
she  soothes,  comforts,  and  administers  to  him  as  no  one  but  an  affectionate  wife  can 
do.  If  his  burdens  are  onerous,  she  divides  their  weight  by  the  exercise  of  her  love 
and  her  sympathy. 

But  a  still  more  important  duty  devolves  upon  the  mother.  After  having  brought 
into  existence  the  offspring  of  the  nuptial  union,  the  children  are  dependent  upon  the 
mother  as  they  are  not  upon  any  other  human  being.  The  trust  is  a  most  sacred, 
most  responsible,  and  most  important  one.  To  watch  over  them  in  their  infancy,  and, 
as  the  mind  begins  to  expand,  to  train,  direct,  and  educate  it  into  the  paths  of  virtue 
and  usefulness,  is  the  high  trust  assigned  to  the  mother.  She  trains  the  twig  as  the 
tree  should  be  iucliued.  She  molds  the  character.  She  educates  the  heart  as  well  as 
the  intellect,  and  she  prepares  the  future  man,  now  the  boy,  for  honor  or  dishonor. 
Upon  the  manner  in  which  she  discharges  her  duty  depends  the  fact  whether  he  shall 
in  future  be  a  useful  citizen  or  a  burden  to  society.  She  inculcates  lessons  of  patriot- 
ism, manliness,  religion,  and  virtue,  fitting  the  man  by  reason  of  his  training  to  bean 
ornament  to  society,  or  dooming  him  by  her  neglect  to  a  life  of  dishonor  and  shame. 
Society  acts  unwisely  when  it  imposes  upon  her  the  duties  that  by  common  consent 
have  always  been  assigned  to  the  sterner  and  stronger  sex,  and  the  discharge  of  which 
causes  her  to  neglect  those  sacred  and  all-important  duties  to  her  children,  and  to  the 
society  of  which  they  are  members. 

In  the  church,  by  her  piety,  her  charity,  and  her  Christian  purity  she  not  only  aids 
society  by  a  proper  training  of  her  own  children,  but  the  children  of  others,  whom 
she  encourages  to  come  to  the  sacred  altar,  are  taught  to  walk  in  the  paths  of  recti- 
tude, honor,  and  religion.  In  the  Sunday-school  room  the  good  woman  is  a  princess, 
and  she  exerts  an  influence  which  purifies  and  ennobles  society,  training  the  young 
in  the  truths  of  religion,  making  the  Sunday-school  the  nursery  of  the  church,  and 
elevating  society  to  the  higher  planes  of  pure  religion,  virtue,  and  patriotism. 

In  the  sick  room  and  among  the  humble,  the  poor,  and  the  suffering,  the  good 
woman,  like  an  angel  of  light,  cheers  the  hearts  and  revives  the  hopes  of  the  poor,  the 
suffering,  and  the  despondent. 

It  w.ould  be  a  vain  attempt  to  undertake  to  enumerate  the  refining,  endearing,  and 
ennobling  influences  exercised  by  the  true  woman  in  her  relations  to  the  family  and 
to  society  when  she  occupies  the  sphere  assigned  her  by  the  laws  of  nature  and  the 
Divine  inspiration,  which  are  our  surest  guide  for  the  present  and  the  future  life. 
But  how  can  woman  be  expected  to  meet  these  heavy  responsibilities  and  to  dis- 
charge these  delicate  and  most  important  duties  of  wife.  Christian,  teacher,  minister 
of  mercy,  friend  of  the  suff'ering,  and  consoler  of  the  despondent  and  the  needy,  if 


WOMAN  SUFFKAGE. 


7. 


we  impose  npou  lier  tlie  grosser,  rougher,  and  harsher  duties  which  nature  has  as- 
signed to  the  male  sex  f 

If  the  wife  and  the  mother  is  required  to  leave  the  sacred  precincts  of  homo,  and 
to  attempt  to  do  military  duty  when  the  state  is  in  peril,  or  if  she  is  to  be  required 
to  leave  her  homo  froui  day  to  day  in  attendance  upon  the  court  as  a  juror,  and  to  be 
shut  up  in  the  jury-room  from  night  to  night,  with  men  who  are  strangers,  while  a 
question  of  life  or  proi>erty  is  being  considered,  if  she  is  to  attend  political  meetings, 
take  part  in  political  discussions,  and  mingle  with  the  male  sex  at  political  gather- 
ings, if  she  is  to  become  an  active  politician,  if  she  is  to  attend  political  caucuses  at 
late  hours  of  the  night,  if  she  is  to  take  i)art  in  all  the  unsavory  work  that  may  bo 
deemed  necessary  for  the  triumph  of  her  party,  and  if  on  election  day  she  is  to  leave 
her  home  and  go  upon  the  streets  electioneering  for  votes  for  the  candidates  who  re- 
ceive her  support,  and  mingling  among  the  crowds  of  men  who  gather  around  the 
polls,  she  is  to  x)ress  her  way  through  them  to  the  ballot-box  and  deposit  her  sulliage, 
if  she  is  to  take  part  in  the  corporate  struggles  of  the  city  or  town  in  which  she  re- 
sides, attend  to  the  duties  of  his  honor  the  mayor,  or  councilman,  or  of  policeman, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  many  other  like  obligations  which  are  disagreeable  even  to  the 
male  sex,  how  is  she,  with  all  these  heavy  duties  of  citizen,  politician,  and  office- 
holder resting  upon  her  shoulders,  to  attend  to  the  more  sacred,  delicate,  and  refining 
trust  to  which  we  have  already  referred,  and  for  which  she  is  peculiarly  fitted  by 
nature?  If  she  is  to  discharge  the  duties  last  mentioned,  how  is  she,  in  connection 
with  them,  to  discharge  the  more  refining,  elevating,  and  ennobling  duties  of  wife, 
mother.  Christian,  and  friend,  which  are  found  in  the  sphere  where  nature  has  placed 
her  ? 

Who  is  to  cave  for  and  train  the  children  while  she  is  absent  in  the  discharge  of 
these  masculine  duties  ? 

If  it  were  proper  to  reverse  the  order  of  nature  and  assign  woman  to  the  sterner 
duties  devolved  upon  the  male  sex  and  to  attempt  to  assign  man  to  the  more  refining, 
delicate,  and  ennobling  duties  of  the  woman,  man  would  be  found  entirely  incompe- 
tent to  the  discharge  of  the  obligations  which  nature  has  devolved  upon  the  gentler 
sex,  and  society  must  be  greatly  injured  by  the  attempted  change.  But  if  we  are 
told  that  the  object  of  this  movement  is  not  to  reverse  this  order  of  nature,  but  only 
to  devolve  upon  the  gentler  sex  a  portion  of  the  more  rigorous  duties  imposed  bjr  na- 
ture upon  the  stronger  sex,  we  reply  that  society  must  be  injured,  as  the  woman 
would  not  be  able  to  discharge  those  duties  so  well,  by  reason  of  her  want  of  physi- 
cal strength,  as  the  male,  upon  whom  they  are  devolved,  and  to  the  extent  that  the 
duties  are  to  be  divided  the  male  would  be  infinitely  less  competent  to  discharge  the 
delicate  and  sacred  trusts  which  nature  has  assigned  to  the  female. 

But  it  has  been  said  that  the  present  law  is  unjust  to  woman;  that  she  is  often  re- 
quired to  pay  taxes  on  property  she  holds  without  being  permitted  to  take  part  in 
framing  or  administering  the  laws  by  which  her  x^roperty  is  governed,  and  that  she 
is  taxed  without  representation.    That  is  a  great  mistake. 

It  may  bo  very  doubtful  whether  the  male  or  the  female  sex,  in  the  present  state  of 
things,  has  more  influence  in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  Government,  and 
the  enactment  of  the  laws  by  which  we  are  governed. 

While  the  woman  does  not  discharge  military  duty,  nor  does  she  attend  courts  and 
serve  on  juries,  nor  does  she  labor  on  the  public  streets,  bridges,  or  highways,  nor 
does  she  engage  actively  and  publicly  in  the  discussion  of  political  afiairs,  nor  does 
she  enter  the  crowded  precincts  of  the  ballot-box  to  deposit  her  suflrage,  still  the  in- 
telligent, cultivated,  noble  woman  is  a  i>ower  behind  the  throne.  All  her  influence  is 
in  favor  of  morality,  justice,  and  fair  dealing  ;  all  her  eftorts  and  her  counsel  are  in 
favor  of  good  government,  wise  and  wholesome  regulations,  and  a  faithful  adminis- 
tration of  the  laws.  Such  a  woman,  by  her  gentleness,  kindness,  and  Christian  bear- 
ing, impresses  her  views  and  her  counsels  upon  her  father,  her  husband,  her  brothers, 
her  sons,  and  her  other  male  friends,  who  imperceptibly  yield  to  her  influence  many 
times,  without  even  being  conscious  of  it.  She  rules,  not  with  a  rod  of  iron,  but  with 
the  queenly  scepter;  she  binds,  not  with  hooks  of  steel,  but  w-ith  silken  cords;  she 
governs,  not  by  physical  eflbrts,  but  by  moral  suasion  and  feminine  purity  and  deli- 
cacy.   Her  dominion  is  one  of  love,  not  of  arbitrary  power. 

We  are  satisfied,  therelore,  that  the  pure,  cultivated,  and  pious  ladies  of  this  coun- 
try now  exercise  a  very  powerful  but  quiet,  imperceptible  influence  in  popular  attairs, 
much  greater  than  they  will  ever  again  exercise  if  female  suft'rage  should  be  enacted 
and  they  should  be  com[>elled  actively  to  take  part  in  the  aftairs  of  state  and  the  cor- 
ruptions of  party  politics. 

It  would  be  a  gratification,  and  we  are  always  glad  to  see  the  ladies  gratified,  to 
many  who  have  espoused  the  cause  of  woman  8\iffrage  if  they  could  take  active  part  « 
in  political  ali'airs,  and  go  to  the  polls  and  cast  their  votes  alongside  the  male  sex; 
but  while  this  would  be  a  gratification  to  a  large  number  of  very  worthy  aiid  excellent 
ladies,  who  take  a  different  view  of  the  question  from  that  which  we  entertain,  we 
feel  that  it  would  be  a  great  cruelty  to  a  much  larger  number  of  the  cultivated,  re- 
S.  Re  p.  1  30 


8 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


fined,  delicate,  and  lovely  women  of  this  country  who  seek  no  such  distinction,  who 
would  enjoy  no  such  privilege,  who  would  with  woman-like  delicacy  shrink  from  the 
discharge  of  any  such  ohligation,  and,  who  would  sincerely  regret  that  what  they 
consider  the  folly  of  the  state  had  imposed  upon  them  any  such  unpleasant  duties. 

But  should  female  suffrage  he  once  established  it  would  become  an  imperative  ne- 
cessity that  the  very  large  class,  indeed  much  the  largest  class,  of  the  women  of  this 
country,  of  the  character  last  described,  should  yield,  contrary  to  their  inclinations 
and  their  wishes,  to  the  necessity  which  would  compel  them  to  engage  in  x)olitical 
strife.  We  apprehend  no  one  who  has  properly  considered  this  question  will  doubt, 
if  female  suffrage  should  be  established,  that  the  more  ignorant  and  less  refined  por- 
tions of  the  lemale  population  of  this  country,  to  say  nothing  of  the  baser  class  of 
females,  laying  aside  female  delicacy,  and  disregarding  the  sacred  duties  devolving 
upon  them  to  which  we  have  already  referred,  would  rush  to  the  polls  and  take  pleas- 
ure in  the  crowded  association  which  the  situation  would  compel  of  the  two  sexes 
in  political  meetings  and  at  the  ballot-box. 

If  all  the  baser  and  all  the  more  ignorant  portion  of  the  female  sex  crowd  to  the 
polls  and  deposit  their  suffrage,  this  compels  the  very  large  class  of  intelligent,  vir- 
tuous, and  refined  females,  including  the  wives  and  mothers  who  have  much  more 
important  duties  to  perform,  to  leave  their  sacred  labors  at'honie,  relinquishing  for  a 
time  the  God-given  important  trust  Avhich  has  been  placed  in  their  hands,  to  go,  con- 
trary to  their  wishes,  to  the  polls  and  vote,  to  counteract  the  suffrage  of  the  less  wor- 
thy class  of  our  female  population. 

If  they  fail  to  do  this  the  best  interests  of  the  country  must  suffer. 

It  is  now  a  problem  which  perplexes  the  brain  of  the  ablest  statesman  to  determine 
how  we  will  best  preserve  our  republican  system  as  against  the  demoralizing  influ- 
ence of  the  large  class  of  our  present  citizens  and  voters,  who,  by  reason  of  their  il- 
literacy, are  unable  to  read  or  write  the  ballot  they  cast. 

Certainly  no  statesman  who  has  carefully  observed  the  situation  wou^ld  desire  to 
add  very  largely  to  this  burden  of  ignorance.  But  who  does  not  apprehend  the  fact 
if  universal  female  suffrage  should  be  established  that  we  will,  especially  in  the 
Southern  States,  add  a  very  large  number  to  the  voting  population  w  hose  ignorance 
utterly  disqualifies  them  to  discharge  the  trust.  If  our  colored  population,  who  were 
so  recently  slaves  that  even  the  males  who  are  voters  have  had  but  little  opportu- 
nity to  educate  themselves,  or  to  be  educated,  whose  ignorance  is  now  exciting  the 
liveliest  interest  of  our  statesmen,  are  causes  of  serious  apprehension,  what  is  to  be 
said  in  favor  of  addiug  to  the  A'oting  poj)ulatiou  all  the  females  of  that  race,  who,  on 
account  of  tho  situation  in  which  they  have  been  x)laced,  have  had  much  less  oppor- 
tunity to  be  educated  than  even  the  males  of  their  own  race?  We  do  not  say  it  is 
their  fault  that  they  are  not  educated;  but  the  fact  is  undeniable  that  they  are 
grossly  ignorant,  with  very  few  exceptions,  and  i)robably  not  one  in  a  hundred  of 
them  could  read  and  write  the  ballot  they  would  be  authorized  to  cast.  What  says 
the  statesman  to  the  propriety  of  adding  this  immense  mass  of  ignorance  to  the  vot- 
ing population  of  the  Union  in  its  present  condition? 

It  may  be  said  that  their  votes  could  be  oflset  by  the  ballots  of  the  educated  and 
refined  ladies  of  the  white  race  in  the  same  section,  but  who  does  not  know  that  the 
ignorant  voters  would  be  at  the  polls  en  masse,  while  the  refined  and  educated,  shrink- 
ing from  public  contact  on  Such  occasions,  would  remain  at  homo  and  attend  to  their 
domestic  and  other  important  duties,  leaving  the  country  to  the  control  of  those  who 
could  afford,  under  the  circumstances,  to  take  part  in  the  strifes  of  i)olitics,  and  to 
come  in  contact  with  the  unpleasant  surroundings  before  they  could  reach  the  polls. 

Are  we  ready  to  expose  the  country  to  the  demoralization,  and  our  institutions  to 
the  strain,  which  would  thus  be  placed  upon  them,  for  the  gratification  of  a  minority 
of  the  virtuous  and  the  good  of  our  female  population,  at  the  expense  of  the  mortifi- 
cation of  a  much  larger  majority  of  the  same  class? 

It  has  been  frequently  urged  with  great  earnestness  by  those  who  advocate  woman 
sufl'rage  that  the  ballot  is  necessary  to  the  women  to  enable  them  to  protect  them- 
selves in  securing  occupations,  and  to  enable  them  to  realize  the  same  compensation 
for  the  like  labor  which  is  received  by  men.  This  argument  is  plausible,  but  upon  a 
closer  examination  it  will  be  found  to  possess  but  little  real  force.  The  price  of  labor 
is,  and  must  continue  to  be,  governed  by  the  law  of  supply  aud  denuind ;  and  the  per- 
son who  has  the  most  i)hysical  strength  to  labor,  and  the  most  pursuits  requiring 
such  strength  open  for  emfDloyment,  will  always  command  the  higher  prices. 

Ladies  make  excellent  teachers  in  the  public  schools ;  many  of  them  are  every  way 
the  equals  of  their  male  competitors,  and  still  they  secure  less  wages  than  males.  The 
reason  is  obvious.  The  number  of  ladies  who  oifer  themselves  as  teachers  is  much 
larger  than  the  number  of  males  who  are  willing  to  teach.  The  larger  number  of 
females  offer  to  teach  because  other  occupations  are  not  open  to  them.  The  smaller 
number  of  males  offer  to  teach  because  other  more  profitable  occupations  are  open  to 
most  males  who  are  competent  to  teach.  The  result  is  that  the  competition  for  posi- 
tions of  teachers  to  be  filled  by  ladies  is  so  great  as  to  reduce  the  price,  but  as  males 


WOMAN  SUFFKAGE. 


9 


can  not  be  employed  at  that  price,  and  are  neceHsary  iu  certain  places  in  the  schoolH, 
tho8e  seeking  their  services  have  to  pay  a  higher  rate  for  them.  Persoim  having  a 
larger  number  of  places  open  to  them  wir  li  fewer  competitors  command  higljer  wages 
than  those  who  have  a  smaller  numher  of  places  open  to  them  with  more  competitors. 
This  is  the  law  of  society.  It  is  the  law  of  su^iply  and  demand,  which  can  not  be 
changed  by  legislation. 

Then  it  follows  that  the  ballot  can  not  enable  those  who  have  to  comi)ete  with  the 
larger  number  to  command  the  same  prices  as  those  who  com[»ete  with  the  smaller 
nnml)er  in  the  labor  market.  As  the  legislature  has  no  power  to  regulate  in  pra<:tice 
that  of  which  the  advocates  of  female  surtVago  complain  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of 
females  could  not  aid  its  regulation.  The  ballot  cannot  impart  to  the  female  physical 
strength  wUich  she  does  not  possess,  nor  can  it  open  to  her  ])ursuits  which  she  does 
not  have  physical  ability  to  engage  iu  ;  and  as  long  as  she  lacks  the  physical  strength 
to  compete  with  men  in  the  ditt'erent  departments  of  labor  there  will  be  more  compe- 
tition in  her  department,  and  she  must  necessarily  receive  less  wages. 

But  it  is  claimed  again  that  females  should  have  the  ballot  as  a  protection  against 
the  tyranny  of  bad  husbands.  This  is  also  delusive.  If  the  husband  is  brutal,  arbi- 
trary, or  tyrannical,  and  tyrannizes  over  her  at  home,  the  ballot  in  her  hands  would 
be  no  protection  against  such  injustice,  but  the  husband  who  compelled  her  to  conform 
to  his  wishes  iu  other  respects  would  also  compel  her  to  use  the  ballot,  if  she  pos- 
sessed it,  as  he  might  please  to  dictate.  The  ballot  could  therefore  be  of  no  assistance 
to  the  wife  in  such  case,  nor  could  it  heal  family  strifes  or  dissensions.  On  the  con- 
trary, one  of  the  gravest  objections  to  placing  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  the  female 
sex  is  that  it  would  i>rouiote  unhappiuess  and  dissensions  in  the  family  circle.  There 
should  be  unity  in  the  family. 

At  present  the  man  represents  the  family  in  meeting  the  demands  of  the  law  and 
of  society  upon  the  family.  So  far  as  tbe  rougher,  coarser  duties  are  concerned,  the 
man  represents  the  family,  and  the  individuality  of  the  woman  is  not  brought  into 
prominence,  but  when  the  ballot  is  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  woman  her  iiulividu- 
ality  is  enlarged  and  she  is  expected  to  answer  for  herself  the  demands  of  the  law  and 
of  society  on  her  individual  account,  and  not  as  the  weaker  member  of  the  family  to 
answer  by  her  husband.  This  naturally  draws  her  out  from  the  dignilied  and  culti- 
vated relinement  of  her  womanly  position,  and  brings  her  into  a  closer  contact  with  the 
rougher  elements  of  society,  which  tends  to  destroy  that  higher  reverence  and  respect 
which  her  retiuement  and  dignity  in  the  relation  of  wife  and  mother  have  always  in- 
spired in  those  who  approached  her  in  her  useful  and  honorable  retirement. 

When  she  becomes  a  voter  she  will  be  more  or  less  of  a  politician,  and  will'  form 
political  alliances,  or  unite  with  political  parties,  which  will  frequently  be  antago- 
nistic to  those  to  which  her  husband  belongs.  This  will  introduce  into  the  family 
circle  new  elements  of  disagreement  and  discord,  which  will  frequently  end  in  un- 
happy divisions,  if  not  in  separation  or  divorce.  This  must  frecjuently  occur  when 
she  becomes  an  active  politician,  identihed  with  a  party  which  is  distasteful  to  her 
husband.  On  the  other  hand,  if  she  unites  with  her  husband  in  party  associations, 
and  votes  with  him  on  all  occasions,  so  as  not  to  disturb  the  harmony  and  happiness 
of  the  family,  then  the  ballot  is  of  no  service,  as  it  simply  duplicates  the  vote  of  the 
male  on  each  side  of  the  question,  and  leaves  the  result  the  same. 

Again,  if  the  family  is  the  uuit  of  society,  and  the  state  is  composed  of  an  aggrega- 
tion of  faujilies,  then  it  is  important  to  rsociety  that  there  be  as  many  happy  families 
as  possible,  and  it  becomes  the  duty  of  man  and  woman  alike  to  unite  in  the  holy  re- 
lation of  nuitrimony. 

As  this  is  the  only  legal  and  proper  mode  of  rendering  obe<lience  to  the  early  com- 
mand to  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth,  whatever  tends  to  discourage  the  holy  re- 
lation of  matrimony,  is  in  disobedience  of  this  command,  and  any  change  which  en- 
courages such  disobedience  is  violative  of  the  Divine  law,  and  can  not  result  in  ad- 
vantage to  the  state.  Before  forming  this  relation  it  is  the  diity  of  young  men  who 
have  to  take  ujion  themselves  the  responsibilities  of  providing  for  and  protecting  the 
family  to  select  some  profession  or  i>ursuit  that  is  most  conge?iial  to  their  tastes,  and 
in  which  they  will  be  most  likely  to  be  successful ;  but  this  is  not  i)ermitt»'d  to  the 
yojing  ladies,  or  if  permitted,  it  can  not  be  practically  carried  out  aft«'r  matrimony. 
As  it  might  fri'(iuently  happen  that  the  young  man  had  selected  one  profession  or  i>ur- 
suit  ami  the  young  lady  another,  the  result  woiild  be  that  aft»'r  marriage  she  must 
drop  the  profession  or  pursuit  of  her  choice  and  employ  herself  in  the  sacred  duties  of 
wile  and  mother  at  home,  and  in  rearing,  educating,  and  elevating  the  family,  while 
the  husband  pursues  the  profession  of  his  choice. 

It  may  be  said,  however,  that  there  is  a  class  of  young  ladies  who  do  not  choose  to 
marry,  and  who  select  professions  or  avocations  and  follow  them  for  a  livelihood. 
This  is  true,  but  this  class  compared  with  the  number  who  unite  in  matrimony  with 
the  husbands  of  their  choice  is  comparatively  very  small ;  and  it  iit  the  duty  of  society  to 
encourage  the  increase  of  marriages  rather  than  of  celibacy.  If  the  larger  number  of 
females  select  pursuits  or  professions  which  require  them  to  decline  marriage,  society 


10 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


to  that  extent  is  deprived  of  the  advantages  resulting  from  the  increase  of  population 
hy  marriage. 

It  is  said  by  those  who  have  examined  the  question  closely  that  the  largest  number 
of  divorces  is  now  found  in  the  communities  where  the  advocates  of  female  suffrage 
are  most  numerous,  and  where  the  individuality  of  woman  as  related  to  her  husband, 
which  such  a  doctrine  inculcates,  is  increased  to  the  greatest  extent.  If  this  be  true, 
and  it  seems  to  be  well  autheuticated,  it  is  a  strong  plea  in  the  interest  of  the  family 
and  of  society  against  granting  the  petition  of  the  advocates  of  woman  suffrage. 
Aft^r  all,  this  a  local  questiou,  which  properly  belongs  to  the  different  States  of  the 
Union,  each  acting  for  itself,  and  to  the  Territories  of  the  Union,  when  not  acting  in  . 
conflict  with  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States. 

The  fact  that  a  State  adopts  the  rule  of  female  suffrage  neither  increases  nor  di- 
minishes its  power  in  the  Union,  as  the  number  of  Kepresentatives  in  Cbngress  to 
which  each  State  is  entitled,  and  the  number  of  members  of  the  electoral  college  ap- 
pointed by  each,  is  determined  by  its  aggregate  population,  and  not  by  the  propor- 
tion of  its  voting  population,  so  long  as  no  race  or  class  i§  excluded  from  the  exercise 
of  the  right  of  suffrage. 

While  the  undersigned  would  vote  against  female  suffrage  if  the  question  were  to 
arise  in  their  respective  States,  they  admit  the  power  of  the  States  over  the  subject- 
matter.  Entertaining  these  views,  they  protest  against  a  constitutional  amendment 
which  would  confer  the  right  of  female  suffrage  in  all  parts  of  the  Union,  without  re- 
gard to  the  wishes  of  the  different  Statt^s  at  any  time  after  the  adoption  of  the  said 
amendment.  They  believe  that  the  noble,  true,  good  womeu  of  the  country  should 
be  heard,  and  as  an  expression  of  their  views  there  is  hereto  appended  Woman's 
Protest  against  Woman  Suffrage,"  known  as  the  Lorain  Memorial  against  Woman 
Suffrage,  presented  to  the  Ohio  legislature  and  signed  by  a  large  number  of  the  most 
thoughtful  aud  intelligent  women  of  the  cities  of  Obedin  and  Elyria,  Ohio,  includ- 
ing lady  teachers  and  wives  of  professors  in  Oberlin  College. 

Joseph  E.  Brown, 
f.  m.  cockrkll. 


woman's  protest  against  woman  suffrage. 

We  acknowledge  no  inferiority  to  men.  We  claim  to  have  no  less  ability  to  perform 
the  dnties  which  God  has  imposed  upon  us  than  they  have  to  perform  those  imposed 
upon  them. 

We  believe  that  God  has  wisely  and  well  adapted  each  sex  to  the  proper  perform- 
ance of  the  duties  of  each. 

We  believe  our  trusts  to  be  as  important  and  sacred  as  any  that  exist  on  earth. 

We  believe  woman  suffrage  would  relatively  lessen  the  influence  of  the  intelligent 
and  true,  and  increase  the  influence  of  the  ignorant  aud  vicious. 

We  feel  that  our  present  duties  fill  up  the  whole  measure  of  our  time  and  ability, 
and  are  such  as  none  but  ourselves  can  perform.  Our  appreciation  of  their  importance 
requires  us  to  protest  against  all  efforts  to  infringe  upon  our  rights  by  imposing  upon 
us  those  obligations  which  can  not  be  separated  from  suffrage,  but  which,  as  we  think, 
can  not  be  performed  by  us  without  the  sacrifice  of  the  highest  interests  of  our  families 
and  of  society. 

It  is  our  fathers,  brothers,  husbands,  and  sons  who  represent  us  at  the  ballot-box. 
Our  fathers  aud  our  brothers  love  us;  our  husbands  are  our  choice  and  one  with  us; 
our  sons  are  what  tve  make  them.  We  are  content  that  they  represent  us  in  the  corn- 
field, on  the  battle-field,  and  at  the  ballot-box,  and  we  them  in  the  school-room,  at  the 
fireside,  and  at  the  cradle,  believing  our  representation  even  at  the  ballot-box  to  be 
thus  more  full  and  impartial  than  it  would  be  were  the  views  of  the  few  who  wish 
suffrage  adopted,  contrary  to  the  judgment  of  the  many. 

We  do  therefore  respectfully  protest  against  any  legislation  to  establish  "  woman 
suffrage"  in  our  land,  or  in  any  part  of  it. 

The  following  letter  from  the  able  and  distinguished  authoress  of 
"  Letters  from  a  Chimney  Corner,"  speaks  eloquently  and  logically  for 
itself: 

Hon.  Henry  W.  Blair, 

United  States  Senator  from  New  Hampshire : 
Dear  Sir  :  During  the  last  week  of  the  last  session  of  Congress  I  received,  under 
cover  of  your  own  frank,  a  copy  of  your  report  of  the  Select  Committee  on  Woman 
Suffrage,  delivered  to  tke  Senate  of  the  United  States,  December  8,  1886.  In  it  you 
make  a  lengthy  quotation  from  a  pamphlet  of  mine,  entitled  Letters  from  a  Chim- 
ney Corner."   It  appears  to  me  that  in  the  argument  drawn  &om  this  quotation  you 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


11 


mistake  utterly  the  point  at  issue,  and  it  is  my  purpose  in  this  letter  to  direct  your 
attention  to  this  miHtake,  and  to  put  the  ar;;unient  upon  its  i)r()per  basis.  I  shall 
also  comment  upon  certain  other  considerations  put  forth  therein. 

The  quotation  referred  to  is  too  lon<;  for  the  limits  of  a  h  tter  liko  this.  The  ar;;u- 
nient  brielly  is,  that  neitlier  the  man  nor  t  lie  woman  is  individually  the  repreH(;ntative 
of  the  genus  homo,  but  that,  accordinj^  to  uature  an<l  nivelalion,  the  two  united  niake 
one,  and  that  to  each  constituent  of  that  union  cert;iin  distinct  jiowi^rs  and  jnoper- 
ties  belonjj^,  each  dependent  upon  the  other,  in  a  nuuor  way,  for  ]>roi»er  fullillment. 
You  say,  If  upon  this  account  woman  is  to  to  be  denied  sullra<;e,  Wn-u  man  e(|ually 
should  be  denied  the  ballot,  if  his  highest  and  linal  estate  is  to  be  something  else  tbau 
a  mere  individual." 

Now,  iuarria<;o  is  that  partnership  upon  which  the  ri<ifht  order  of  societj'  and  the 
ri<jht  perpetuation  of  the  si)ecies  depends.  The  (luesrion  is,  whether  each  partner 
shall  keep  to  that  line  of  labor  which  nature  has  marked  out,  or  wiieth«?rof  woman 
shall  be  demanded,  not  only  her  own  share  of  the  labor,  but  also  ;i  lar;;e  |)art  of  that 
which  belouf^s  to  man.  For,  let  us  notice,  that  while  it  may  be  <;riint<;d  that  woman 
has  the  physical  capacity  to  cast  a  ballot,  man  has  not  tlu;  physical  cajjacity  to  bear 
and  nourish  children.  Nature  has  made  it  forever  impossible  that  he  shouhl  perform 
that  oflice.  If,  therefore,  he  demands  of  her  that  she  shall  participate  in  those  exter- 
nal and  «;eneral  duties,  such  as  labor  for  the  support  of  the  home  and  for  the  <lirectiou 
of  the  state,  which  his  luitural  constitution,  ])hysical  and  intellectual,  fit  him  for, 
while  he  can  not  by  any  ])ossibility  relieve  her  of  those  necessary  oflices  and  duties 
which  nature  demands  of  her,  he  commits  a  palpable  and  monstrous  in  justice. 

Nor  does  it  help  the  matter  to  say,  as  you  do,  that,  because  woman's  nature  is  purer 
and  nobler  than  man's  the  state  would  be  benefited  by  her  particijjation  in  political 
affairs.  If  men  are  not  capable  of  mannsing  the  affairs  of  the  state  aecoidiii<;  to  the 
highest  and  best  ideas  of  the  race,  that  is,  of  both  men  and  women,  will  you  j^ermit 
Die  resi>ectfully  to  inquire  what  proper  and  adequate  share  of  this  world's  w()rk  tln-y 
can  perform  ?  What  is  their  natural  place  in  the  order  of  society?  Are  tln'y  mere 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  ?  They  can  not  bear  citizens  ;  tln^y  can  not  care 
for  them  in  infancy  and  rear  them  to  manhood.  If  they  can  not  govern  them  with 
wisdom  and  justice  when  they  are  produced  ready  made  to  their  hands,  what  is  their 
reason  for  being?  When  a  man  stands  up  in  the  United  States  S«'nate,  and  makes 
such  a  statement  as  that,  in  regard  to  the  men  of  this  Republic,  it  ii[q)eai  sto  nu*  that 
he  comjnoniises  his  own  self-respect  and  the  re8j)ect  due  to  the  dignified  and  honorable 
body  to  which  he  has  been  elevated. 

You  say  that  you  have  only  proposed  the  measure  because  women  have  asked  you 
to  do  it.  The  same  plea  was  made  by  your  great  progenitor  in  the  Garden  of  Eden; 
but  it  did  not  avail  him.  Moreover,  in  the  case  of  Adam,  it  was  true.  In  the  pre- 
sent instance  the  plea  contains  but  the  minimum  of  truth.  There  are  ir),O00,lH»0  of 
women  in  this  country  (I  quote  your  own  statistics)  of  voting  age.  -Will  you  kindly 
inform  us  what  proportion  of  that  15,000,000  you  have  heard  from  ?  You  say  that 
these  women  are  being  governed  without  their  consent.  Is  it  poKsibh;  that  you  can 
8inc<'rely  believe  that  fifteen  millions  of  American  women^o/</^i  be  governed  without 
their  consent  f  Do  you  not  rather  feel  assured  that  if  a  baie  majority  of  that  number 
did  not  consent,  for  what  appear  to  them  to  be  good  and  sntlicient  r«;asous  to  be  gov- 
erned 1)^  indirect  rather  than  direct  n^presentation,  there  would  be  a  revolution 
within  twenty-four  hours?  With  every  right  of  agitation  at  their  command  which 
man  possesses — free  speech,  free  assend)ly,  tlie  right  of  i>etition,  a  jiress  ever  ready  to 
disseminate  their  views,  and  many  privileges  of  courtesy  besides  that  men  lay  no 
claim  to — what  i)ower  could  withstand  the  moral  force  of  any  demand  which  these 
fifteen  millions  should  unitedly  make  ? 

VVith  what  show  of  reason  do  you  compare  free-born  American  women  to  the  ile- 
graded  and  ignorant  slaves  on  Southern  plantations,  and  s])eak  of  men  as  their  nuis- 
ters?  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  power  of  men  over  women  is  not  greater  than  that 
of  \yomen  over  men.  Nature  lays  the  infant  man  a  helpless  creatun^  in  the  lap 
of  his  mother.  He  is  in  her  power  for  life  or  for  death,  an<l  for  the  lirstten  (»r  lift»'»'n 
years  of  his  <'xistence,  and  that  . luring  the  forming  and  determining  ])eriod  «>f  his 
career,  a  ])eriod  too,  in  which  he  is  answerable  to  no  other  law  than  that  of  his  home, 
her  pow«;r  over  him,  ])hysical,  intellectual,  and  moral,  is  so  nearly  supreme  that  no 
power  which  he  can  arrogate  over  her  in  later  years  can  overbabinco  it.  Under  or- 
dinary ciKtumstances  the  faithful,  intelligent  mother  may  make  of  her  son,  in  all  the 
e.ssentials  of  manners  and  morals,  whats()ever  she  will.  If  American  men  wereto  day 
the  narrow-minded,  tyrannii  al,  vicious  cn'atun'S  they  are  charged  w  ith  ln'ing  by  the 
woman  suffragists,  unfitted  to  l)e  legislators  for  the  whole  nation,  it  could  only  be  be- 
cause their  mothers  ha<l  misunderstood  or  neglected  the  o]q)ortunities  which  Nature 
puts  int(»  their  hamls.  Such  a  charge  is  a  tremendous  indictuwut  against  the  mother- 
hoo<l  of  the  nation,  and,  if  it  could  be  sustained,  ought  of  itself  to  bar  women  from 
all  legislative  functions  until  they  can  better  fulfil  that  which  Natur.s  demands  of 
them  in  child-bearing  and  rearing.    Moreover,  it  is  the  function  of  slaves  to  labor  ; 


12 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


but  it  is  this  nation's  pride  and  boast  that  in  no  other  country  that  the  sun  shines  on 
are  there  so  many  homes  supported  by  the  loyal  and  untiring  industry  of  men,  where 
women  are  kept  in  ease  and  comfort,  in  order  that  they  may  give  their  time  to  the 
higher  duties  of  rearing  children  and  planning  and  carrying  on  enterprises  of  charity, 
philanthropy,  and  reform;  and  the  influence  of  these  homes  upon  public  sentiment  is 
the  one  irresistible  power  in  American  social  and  political  life.  Plainly,  if  any  por- 
tion of  the  American  people  are  slaves  it  is  not  the  women. 

But  let  us  return  to  the  questionof  the  physical  adaptability  of  women  to  the  duties 
of  A'oters.  If  women  vote,  they  must  also  hold  office  and  assume  the  working  duties 
incident  to  political  campaigns.  It  appears  from  the  published  record  of  your  life 
that  you  commenced  your  political  career  at  about  the  age  of  thirty.  For  the  next 
ten  or  fifteen  years  you  were  actively  in  politics.  Now,  will  you  tell  me  if  you  think 
it  would  have  been  convenient  or  agreeable  during  those  years,  when  you  were  laying 
the  foundations  of  your  political  success,  to  have  been  also  engaged  in  bearing  and 
rearing  a  family  ?  Could  you  have  done  what  you  found  it  necessary  to  do  politically, 
and  at  the  same  time  have  attended  properly  to  your  duties  as  wife  and  mother? 
You  will  say  that  the  very  suggestion  is  indelicate,  and  I  agree  with  you,  but  the 
fault  is  in  the  situation  as  proposed  by  you.  The  duties  and  offices  of  motherhood 
are  all  sweet,  and  pure,  and  holy,  when  kept  within  the  sacred  precincts  of  the 
home.    Brought  out  into  the  garish  light  of  publicity  what  do  they  become  ? 

Nor  will  it  avail  you  to  say  that  some  part  of  these  offices  maybe  delegated  to 
servants.  There  are  too  many  mothers  of  -that  sort  in  the  country  now ;  no  political 
measure  can  be  a  wise  one  which  tends  to  increase  their  number. 

You  say  in  your  report  that  there  are  many  women  who  are  not  wives  and  mothers. 
Very  true,  and  when  women  vote  and  hold  office  there  will  be  more  of  them.  A  true 
regard  for  the  best  interests  of  society  demands  that  their  number  shall  be  reduced 
by  all  natural  and  reasonable  means ;  but  when  political  rewards  are  offered  as  the 
price  of  services  in  public  life,  do  you  not  believe  that  many — and  those  not  of  the 
weak  and  ignorant,  but  of  the  more  gifted  and  intellectual — will  be  tempted  to  forego 
marriage  and  motherhood  for  the  sake  of  winning  them  ?  Woe  betide  the  land  which 
thus  offers  its  political  trusts  as  premiums  for  childless  women!  The  morals  of  so- 
ciety are  corrupt  enough  now.  What  do  you  suppose  they  will  become  when  not  to 
be  married,  not  to  be  a  mother,  is  the  prerequisite  for  a  woman's  success  in  a  chosen 
and  ten)pting  career  ?  History  gives  abundant  evidence  that  women  are  not  natu- 
rally of  purer  instincts  or  more  capable  of  self-control  than  men.  It  is  only  as  they 
are  subject  to  men,  as  in  heathen  countries,  or  yield  themselves  to  the  elevating  and 
purifying  influences  of  Christian  teaching  concerning  marriage  and  the  home,  that 
they  rise  to  a  higher  moral  level.  Emancipated  from  these  restraints,  the  intensity 
of  their  nature  often  betrays  them  into  surpassing  depths  of  depravity.  I  speak  ad- 
visely,  therefore,  and  in  the  light  of  thirty  years'  profound  and  prayerful  study  of 
social  problems,  when  I  say  that  the  direct  tendency  of  woman  suffrage  would  be  to 
form  a  class  of  women  such  as  held  high  court  in  Greece  in  the  days  preceding  its 
downfall:  Women  brilliant  and  intellectual,  but  wholly  wanting  in  tliat  steadfast 
faith  and  abiding  virtue  Avhich  characterizes  the  Anglo-Saxon  ideal  of  womanhood, 
I  may  say  the  Christian  ideal  as  well— the  wife  and  mother.  Are  American  men  pre- 
pared to  relegate  the  wives  and  mothers  of  this  Republic  to  a  secondary  and  subser- 
vient place,  and  share  the  political  leadership  of  this  great  and  free  country  with  an 
oligarchy  of  Aspasias? 

You  say  that  the  passage  of  the  proposed  resolution  would  not  commit  any  person 
to  the  8U}3port  of  w^oman  suft'rage  in  tlie  end.  But  what  does  it  do  if  passed  by  both  " 
Houses?  It  sends  the  discussion  of  this  question,  backed  by  the  authority  of  Con- 
gress, into  every  State  of  this  Union.  A  score  or  two  of  the  professional  advocates  of 
woman  suffrage  will  beat  up  the  entire  Territory,  and  by  their  noisy  persistence  will 
necessitate  either  that  women  shall  take  the  field  upon  the  other  side  or  else  let  the 
question  go  by  default.  Home-loving  w^omen — the  women  who  stay  in  their  homes 
and  fulfill  the  duties  of  their  vocation,  and  these  women  are  in  the  great  majority  in 
all  our  States  and  Territories — have  little  taste  for  public  strife,  and  few  gifts  with 
which  to  win  battles  in  the  public  arena.  Still,  if  needs  must,  they  can  and  will 
defend  their  homes  ;  but,  believe  me,  they  will  not  exonerate  from  blame  those  legis- 
lators who,  by  the  advocacy  of  measures  like  this  which  you  propose,  have  thrust  the 
hard  necessity  upon  them. 

Do  you  ask  me,  then,  what  shall  men  do,  in  regard  to  this  cry,  which  is  coming  up 
all  over  the  land,  for  purer  politics,  a  worthier  conduct  of  affairs?  Men  know  v»^ry 
well  what  they  ought  to  do  about  it.  They  ought  to  live  daily  and  hourly  in 
the  fear  of  God  and  for  the  honor  of  good  women.  They  ought  steadfastly  to  prac- 
tice those  principles  of  purity,  honor,  uprightness,  and  i>atriotism,  which  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  Christian  home  to  inculcate.  It  is  very  true  that  the  duty  is  now  too 
often  imperfectly  performed  in  our  homes;  but,  believe  me,  the  remedy  for  this  evil 
does  not  lie  in  the  direction  of  woman  suffrage.  It  is  by  inciting  and  helping 
woman  to  the  more  faithful  discharge  of  her  own  duties  that  legislators  will  honor 


WOMAN  SUl'TUAGE. 


13 


her  far  more  than  by  dragging  her  out  of  tlio  quiet  of  her  own  domain,  and  setting 
her  to  perforin  their  neglected  and  uiifiillilliMl  t;i.skn. 

Instead  of  fifteen  milliona  of  women  voters  vsiiiily  trying  to  do  the  work  which 
God  demands  of  men,  there  should  bo  fifteen  million  of  li;ipj>y  honuis  in  tliis  broad, 
fair  land ;  homes  supported  by  the  lather's  labor,  made  to  glow  with  heaven's  own 
light  by  the  mothers' tender  love  and  care ;  homes  where  children  are  being  reared 
who  shall  become  just  and  upright  men,  and  faithful,  consci(!ntious  women;  where 
those  virtues  are  being  taught  which  are  the  only  enduring  bulwarks  of  a  free  rei)ub- 
lican  government.  It  is  to  build  up  such  homos,  not  to  break  down  their  walls  and 
quench  the  light  upon  their  hearthstones,  that  legislation  ought  to  bo  directod. 

There  are  other  and  weightier  arguments  against  woman  suirnige,  hut  those  are 
such  as  are  suggested  by  the  text  of  your  report.  I  commend  them  to  your  earnest 
consideration  before  you  again  address  the  United  States  Senate  as  the  champion  of 
woman. 

Very  respectfully,  yours, 

The  Author  op  Letters  from  a  Chimney  Corner. 

The  autboress  of  "Letters  from  a  Chimney  Corner"  is  not  the  only 
lady  whose  views  are  opposed  to  the  Woman  Suffragists,  as  will  appear 
by  the  following: 

WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

LETTER  FROM  MRS.  CLARA  T.  LEONARD. 

The  following  letter  was  read  by  Thornton  K.  Lothrop,  esq.,  at  the  hearing  before 
the  Legislative  Committee  on  Woman  Suifrage,  January  29,  1884  : 

The  principal  reasons  assigned  for  giving  suffrage  to  women  are  these: 

That  the  right  to  vote  is  a  natural  and  inherent  right  of  which  women  are  deprived 
by  the  tyranny  of  men. 

That  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  women  do  not  wish  for  the  right  or  privilege  to 
vote  is  not  a  reason  for  depriving  the  minority  of  an  inborn  right. 

That  women  are  taxed  but  not  represented,  contrary  to  the  principles  of  free  gov- 
ernment. 

That  society  would  gain  by  the  participation  of  women  in  government,  because 
women  are  purer  and  more  conscientious  than  men,  and  especially  that  the  cause  of 
temperance  would  be  promoted  by  women's  votes. 

Those  women  who  are  averse  to  female  suffrage  hold  differing  opinions  on  all  these 
points,  and  are  entitled  to  be  heard  fairly  and  without  unjust  reproach  and  contempt 
on  the  part  of  "suffragists,"  so  called. 

The  right  to  vote  is  not  an  inherent  right,  but,  like  the  right  to  hold  land,  is  con- 
ferred u})on  individuals  by  general  consent,  with  certain  limitations,  and  for  the  gen- 
eral good  of  all. 

It  is  as  true  to  say  that  the  earth  was  made  for  all  its  inliabitants,  and  that  no  man 
has  a  right  to  ajjpropriate  a  portion  of  its  surface,  as  to  say  that  all  persons  have  a 
right  to  jiart icipate  in  gov^erument.  Many  persons  can  be  found  to  hold  both  these 
opinions.  Experience  has  proved  that  the  general  good  is  promoted  by  ownership  of 
the  soil,  with  the  resultant  inducement  to  its  improvement. 

Voting  is  simply  a  mathematical  test  of  strength.  Uncivilized  nations  strive  for 
mastery  hy  physical  combat,  thus  wasting  life  and  resources.  Enlightened  societies 
agree  to  (lotermine  the  relative  strength  of  opposing  parties  by  actual  count.  (Jod 
has  made  women  weaker  than  men,  incapable  of  taking  part  in  battles,  indisposeil  to 
nnike  riot  and  political  disturbance. 

The  vote  which,  in  the  hand  of  a  man,  is  a  "  possible  bayonet,"  wouhl  not,  when 
thrown  by  a  woman,  represent  any  physical  power  to  enforce  her  will.  If  all  tlio 
women  in  the  State  voted  in  one  way,  and  all  the  men  in  the  opposite  one,  the 
wonien,  even  if  in  the  majority,  would  not  carry  the  day,  because  the  vote  would  not 
be  au  estimate  of  material  strength  and  the  power  to  enforce  the  will  of  the  majority. 
When  one  consnlers  the  strong  passions  and  eonllicis  excited  in  eU'ctions,  it  is  vain 
to  sup{)ose  that  the  really  stronger  would  yield  to  the  wt^aker  party. 

It  is  no  more  unjust  to  deprive  women  of  the  ballot  than  to  deiuive  miimrs,  who 
outnumber  those  above  the  age  of  majority,  and  who  might  well  claim,  many  of  them, 
to  be  as  well  able  to  decide  political  (juestions  as  their  ehlers. 

If  the  majority  ot  women  an;  <Mther  not  desirous  to  vote  or  are  strongly  o]>posed  to 
voting,  the  minority  should  yield  in  this,  as  they  art>  obliged  to  <lo  in  all  other  public 
matters.  In  fact,  they  will  be obligtMl  to  yield,  so  long  as  t  lu^  present  state  of  o|iiMion 
exists  among  wonuui  in  general,  lor  le«;islators  will  naturally  <-onsult  the  wisiu's  of 
tlie  wouji  n  of  their  own  families  and  iiei^hhorhood,  and  h»^gov»  riied  by  tiM  iii.  I'hero 
can  be  no  doubt  that  in  this  State,  where  woiih  m  are  highly  i.  siM  ri,  ,!  umI  h  ive  great 


14 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


ijafluence,  the  ballot  would  be  readily  granted  to  them  by  men,  if  they  desired  it,  or 
generally  approved  of  woman  suffrage.  Women  are  taxed,  it  is  true;  so  are  minors, 
without  the  ballot;  it  is  untrue  to  say  that  either  class  is  not  represented.  The  thou- 
sand ties  of  relationship  and  friendship  cause  the  identity  of  interest  between  the 
sexes.  What  is  good  in  a  community  for  men  is  good  also  for  their  wives  and  sisters, 
daughters  and  friends.  The  laws  of  Massachusetts  discriminate  much  in  favor  of  wo- 
men, by  exempting  unmarried  women  of  small  estate  from  taxation ;  by  allowing  wo- 
men, and  not  men,  to  acquire  a  settlement  without  paying  a  tax ;  by  compelling  hus- 
bands to  support  their  wives,  but  exempting  the  wife,  even  when  rich,  from  support- 
ing an  indigent  husband ;  by  making  men  liable  for  debts  of  wives,  and  not  vice  versa. 
In  the  days  of  the  American  Revolution  tbe  first  cause  of  complaint  was,  that  a  whole 
people  were  taxed  but  not  represented.  To-day  there  is  not  a  single  interest  of  woman 
which  is  not  shared  and  defended  by  men,  not  a  subject  in  which  she  takes  an  intelli- 
gent interest  in  which  she  can  not  exert  an  influence  in  the  community  proportional 
to  her  character  and  ability.  It  is  because  the  men  who  govern  live  not  in  a  remote 
country  with  sejjarate  interests,  but  in  the  closest  relations  of  family  and  neighbor- 
hood, and  bound  by  the  tenderest  ties  to  the  other  sex,  who  are  fully  and  well  repre- 
sented by  relations,  friends,  and  neighbors  in  every  locality.  That  women  are  purer 
and  more  conscientious  than  men,  as  a  sex,  is  exceedingly  doubtful  when  applied  to 
politics.  The  faults  of  the  sexes  are  different,  according  to  their  constitution  and 
habits  of  life.  Men  are  more  violent  and  open  in  their  misdeeds  ;  but  any  person  who 
knows  human  nature  well,  and  has  examined  it  in  its  various  phases,  knows  that  each 
sex  is  open  to  its  peculiar  temptation  and  sin  ;  that  the  human  heart  is  weak  and 
prone  to  evil  without  distinction  of  sex.  It  seems  certain  that,  were  women  admitted 
to  vote  and  to  hold  political  office,  all  the  intrigue,  corruption,  and  selfishness  dis- 
played by  men  in  political  life  would  also  be  found  among  women.  In  the  temper- 
ance cause  we  should  gain  little  or  nothing  by  admitting  women  to  vote,  for  two 
reasons:  first,  that  experience  has  proved  that  the  strictest  laws  can  not  be  enforced 
if  a  great  number  of  people  determine  to  drink  liquor ;  secondly,  because  among  women 
voters  we  should  find  in  our  cities  thousands  of  foreign  birth  who  habitually  drink  beer 
and  spirits  daily  without  intoxication,  and  who  regard  license  or  prohibitory  laws  as 
an  infringement  of  their  liberty.  It  has  been  said  that  nmuicii)al  suffrage  for  Avomen 
in  England  has  proved  a  political  success.  Even  if  this  is  true,  it  offers  no  parallel  to 
the  condition  of  things  in  our  own  cities ;  first,  because  there  is  in  England  a  property 
qualification  required  to  vote,  which  excludes  the  more  ignorant  and  irresponsible 
classes,  and  makes  women  voters  few  and  generally  intelligent;  secondly,  because 
England  is  an  old,  conservative  country,  with  much  emigration  and  but  little  inmii- 
gration.  Here  is  a  constant  influx  of  foreigners— illiterate,  without  love  of  our  country 
or  interest  in,  or  knowledge  of,  the  history  of  our  liberties — to  whom,  after  a  short  resi- 
dence, we  give  a  fi\ll  share  in  Our  Government.  The  result  begins  to  be  alarming — 
enormous  taxation,  purchasable  votes,  demagogism — all  these  alarm  the  more  thought- 
ful, and  we  are  not  yetsure  of  the  end.  It  is  a  wise  thought  thatthe  possible-  bayonet 
or  ruder  weapou  in  the  hands  of  our  citizens  would  be  oven  worse  than  the  ballot,  and 
our  safer  course  is  to  give  the  immigrants  a  stake  and  interest  in  the  Government.  But 
when  we  learn  that  on  an  average  1,000  immigrants  per  week  landed  at  the  port  of 
Boston  in  the  past  calendar  year,  is  it  not  well  to  consider  carefully  how  we  double 
and  more  than  double  the  popular  vote,  with  all  its  dangers  and  its  ingredients  of 
ignorance  and  irresponsibility  ?  Last  of  all,  it  must  be  considered  that  the  lives  of 
men  and  women  are  essentially  difiereut.  One  sex  lives  in  public,  in  constant  con- 
flict with  the  world  ;  the  other  sex  nmst  live  chiefly  in  private  and  domestic  life,  or 
the  race  will  be  without  homes  and  gradually  die  out.  If  nearly  one-half  of  the 
male  voters  of  our  State  forego  their  duty  or  privilege,  as  is  the  fact,  what  pro- 
portion of  women  would  exercise  the  sufirage  ?  Probably  a  very  small  one.  The 
heaviest  vote  would  be  in  the  cities,  as  now,  and  the  ignoi  ant  and  unfit  women 
would  be  the  ready  prey  of  the  unscrupulous  demagogue.  Women  ilo  not  hold  a  po- 
sition inferior  to  men.  In  this  land  they  have  the  softer  side,  of  life,  the  best  of 
everything.  There  are,  of  course,  excei)tions,  individuals,  whose  struggle  in  life  is 
hard,  whose  husbands  and  fathers  are  tyrants  instead  of  protectors  ;  so  there  are  bad 
wives  and  men  ruined  and  disheartened  by  selfish,  idle  women. 

The  best  work  that  a  woman  can  do  for  the  purifying  of  politics  is  by  her  influence 
over  men,  by  the  wise  training  of  her  children,  by  her  intelligent  unselfish  counsel  to 
husband,  brother,  or  friend,  by  a  thorough  know^ledge  and  discussion  of  the  needs  of 
her  community.  Many  laws  on  the  statute  books  of  our  own  and  other  States  have 
been  the  work  of  women.    More  might  be  added. 

It  is  the  opinion  of  many  of  us,  that  woman's  power  is  greater  without  the  ballot 
or  possibility  of  office-holding  for  gain.  When  standing  outside  of  politics,  she  dis- 
cusses great  questions  upon  their  merit.  Much  has  been  achieved  by  women  in  the 
anti-slavery  cause,  the  temperance  cause,  the  improvement  of  public  atid  private 
charities,  the  reformation  of  criminals,  all  by  intelligent  discussion  and  influence 
upon  men.    Our  legislators  have  been  ready  to  listen  to  women,  and  carry  out  their 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


15 


plane  when  well  framed.  Women  can  <lo  much  uHofnl  pnl)lic  sorvico  npon  boards  of 
education,  school  committecH,  and  public  cbarit  i<'H,  and  arc  b('<riiiniii;x  (o  (b>KU('h  work, 
It  is  of  vital  importance  to  the  inte^^rity  of  our  charital)l<i  and  educational  admin- 
istration that  it  bo  kept  out  of  politics.  Is  it  not  well  1  hat  we  should  have  one  sex 
who  have  no  political  ends  to  servo,  who  can  till  ^espoIlNibl(^  positions  of  public 
trust?  Voting  alone  can  easily  bo  exercised  by  women  without  rudo  contact,  but  to 
attain  any  political  power  women  must  alliliato  tlxMUHclvcs  with  men;  brcausti 
wonien  will  dilfer  on  public  questions,  must  atteud  ])riuiary  mcctinf^s  ami  (  jmumimch, 
will  inevitably  hold  public  ofiico  and  strive  for  it;  iu  short,  wouicn  must  cuter  the 
political  arena.  This  result  will  bo  repulsive  to  a  laigj'.  portion  of  t  ho  sex,  aud  wouhl 
tend  to  make  women  unfeminino  and  combative,  which  would  bo  a  detriment  to 
society. 

It  is  well  that  men  after  the  burden  aud  heat  of  the  day  should  return  to  homes 
where  the  quiet  side  of  life  is  presented  to  them.  In  these  jx'accful  New  England 
homes  of  ours,  great  and  noble  men  have  been  raised  by  wis<^  an<l  pious  mothers,  who 
instructed  them,  not  in  i)olitics,  but  iu  those  general  principles  of  Just  ice,  integrity, 
and  nuseltishness,  which  belong  to  and  will  insure  statesmanship  in  the  men  who  are 
true  to  them.  Hero  is  the  stronghold  of  the  sex,  weakest  iu  body,  ])owerful  for  good 
or  evil  over  the  stronger  one,  whom  women  sway  and  govern,  not  by  the  l)allot  aud 
by  greater  numbers,  but  by  those  gentle  iuHueuces  designed  by  the  Creator  to  soften 
aud  subdue  mau's  ruder  uature. 

Ci.ARA  T.  Leonauo. 


THE  LAW  OF  WOMAN  LIFE. 

The  external  arguments  on  both  sides  the  modern  woman  question  have  been  pretty 
thoroughly  presented  and  well  argued.  It  seems  needless  to  lept^at  or  recombing 
them  ;  but  in  one  relation  they  have  scarcely  been  handled  with  any  direct  purpose 
Justice  and  expediency  have  been  the  points  insisted  on  or  contested;  these  have 
not  gone  back  far  enough  ;  they  have  not  touched  the  central  fact  to  set  it  forth  in 
its  lorce  and  linality.  The  fact  is  original  and  inherent,  behind  and  at  the  root  of 
tho  entire  matter,  with  all  its  complication  and  circumstance.  We  have  to  ask  a 
question  to  which  it  is  the  answer,  and  whose  answer  is  that  of  the  whole  iloubtaud 
dispute. 

What  is  the  law  of  woman  life  ? 

What  w^as  she  made  woman  for,  and  not  man  ? 

Shall  wc  look  back  to  that  old  third  chapter  of  Genesis? 

When  mankind  had  taken  tho  knowledge  and  power  of  good  and  evil  into  their  own 
hands  through  the  mere  earthly  wisdom  of  the  serpent;  when  tho  woman  ha<l  hart 
her  hasty  outside  way  aud  lead,  according  to  the  story,  and  woe  had  come  of  it,  what 
was  th(;  sentence?  And  was  it  a  penance,  or  a  setting  right,  or  a  i)romise,  or  all 
three  ? 

The  serpent  was  first  dealt  with.  The  narrow  policy,  the  keen  cunning,  the  little, 
immediate  outlook,  the  expedient  motive  ;  all  that  was  impersonated  of  temporary 
shift  and  outward  prudence  iu  mortal  atlairs,  regardless  of  or  blind  to  the  everlast- 
ing issues  ;  all,  in  short,  that  re])rcsent.ed  material  and  temporal  interest  as  a  rule 
and  order — aiul  is  not  man's  external  administration  upon  tho  earth  largely  forced  to 
be  a  legislation  upon  these  principles  and  economies— was  disposed  of  with  the  tew 
words,  "  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and  the  woman.'' 

Was  this  punishment,  as  reflected  npon  tho  woman,  or  the  power  of  a  grand  re- 
trieval for  her?  Not  to  the  man,  who  had  been  led,  aud  who  would  be  led  again,  by 
the  woman,  was  the  commission  of  holy  revenge  intrusted;  but  henceforth,  '  I  will 
set  the  woman  against  thee:"  Against  the  very  principle  ami  live  prompting  of  evil, 
or  of  mere  earthly  purpose  and  motive.  "  lietween  thy  seed  aud  her  seed  :  "  Your 
struggle  with  her  shall  be  in  and  for  tho  very  lil'eof  the  race.  "  It,"  her  life  brought 
forth,  "shall  bruise  thy  head,"  thy  whole  power,  and  plan,  ami  insidious  euuuing ; 
"and  thou  slialt  bruise,"  shalt  sting,  torment,  hinder,  and  trouble  in  the  way  ami 
daily  going,  "his  heel,"  his  footstej).  Thou,  the  subtle  and  creeping  thing  of  the 
ground,  shalt  lurk  after  and  threaten  with  crookedness  and  pois(U)  the  ways  of  the 
men-children  in  their  earth-toiling ;  tho  woman,  the  mother,  shall  turn  upon  thee  for 
and  in  them,  and  shall  beat  thee  down! 

Unto  the  woman  hesaid,  "  I  will  greatly  multiply  thy  sorrow  and  thy  conception." 
The  burden  and  the  glory  are  set  in  one.  The  pain  of  the  world  shall  be  in  your 
heart;  the  trouble,  the  contradiction  of  it,  shall  be  against  your  lov»*  and  insight. 
But  your  pain  shall  be  your  power;  you  shall  be  thc^  lile-bearer  ;  you  shall  hold  the 
motive;  yours  sliall  bo  the  desire,  and  your  husband's  the  dominion.  Ther»>for<' shall 
you  bring  your  aspiration  to  him,  that  he  may  fuUill  it  for  you.  "  Your  desire  shall 
be  unto  him,  and  he  shall  rule." 


16 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


And  unto  Adam  he  said,  "  Because  thou  has  hearkened  unto  the  voice  of  thy  wife," 
yes,  and  because  thou  wilt  hearken,  "  thy  sorrow  shall  be  in  the  labor  of  the  earth  ; 
the  ground  shall  be  cursed ;  "  in  all  material  things  shall  be  cross  and  trouble,  not 
agaiust  you,  but  "  for  your  »ake."  "In  your  sorrow  you  shall  eat  of  it  all  the  days 
of  your  life."  Your  need  and  struggle  shall  be  with  external  things,  and  with  tlie 
ruling  of  them.  For  your  sake,"  that  you  may  learn  your  mastery,  inherit  your 
true  power,  carry  out  with  ease  and  understanding  the  desire  and  need  of  the  race, 
which  woman  represents,  discerns  afar,  and  pleads  to  you. 

And  Adam  bowed  before  the  Lord's  judgment ;  we  are  not  told  that  he  answered  any 
thing  to  that ;  but  he  turned  to  his  wife,  and  in  that  moment  "  called  her  name  Eve, 
because  she  was  the  mother  of  all  living."  Then  and  there  was  the  division  made, 
and  to  which  can  we  say  was  the  empire  given  ?  Both  were  set  in  conditions,  hemmed 
in  to  divine  and  special  work — man,  by  the  stress  and  sorrow  of  the  ground  ;  woman 
by  the  stress  and  sorrow  of  her  maternity  and  of  her  spiritual  conception,  making  her 
truly  the  *'  mother  of  all  living," 

At  the  beginning  of  human  histoiy  or  tradition,  then,  we  get  the  answer  to  our 
question:  The  law  of  woman  life  is  central,  interior,  and  from  the  heart  of  things ; 
the  law  of  the  man's  life  is  circumferential,  enfolding,  shaping,  bearing  on  and 
around  outwardly;  wheel  within  wheel  is  the  constitution  of  human  power.  It  will 
be  an  evil  day  for  the  world  when  the  nave  shall  leave  its  place  and  contend  for  that  of 
the  felloe.  Iron-rimmed  for  its  basy  revolution  and  outward  contact  is  the  life  and 
strength  of  man  ;  but  the  tempered  steel  is  at  the  heart  and  within  the  soul  of  the 
woman,  that  she  may  bear  the  silent  pressure  of  the  axle,  and  quietly  and  invisibly 
originate  and  support  the  entire  onward  movement.  "  The  spirit  of  the  living  crea- 
ture is  in  the  wheels,"  and  they  can  move  no  otherwise.  ''When  the  living  creatures 
went,  the  wheels  went  by  them  ;  and  when  the  living  creatures  were  lifted  up  from 
the  earth,  the  wheels  were  lifted  up."  That  was  what  Ezekiel  saw  in  his  vision. 
There  can  be  no  going  forward  without  a  life  and  presence  and  impulse  at  the  cen- 
ter ;  and  in  the  organization  of  humanity  there  is  where  the  place  and  power  of 
woman  haA'^e  been  put.  For  good  or  for  evil,  for  the  serpent  or  for  the  redeeming 
Christ,  she  must  move,  must  influence,  must  achieve  beforehand,  and  at  the  heart; 
she  must  be  the  mother  of  the  race;  she  must  be  the  mother  of  the  Messiah.  Not 
woman  in  her  own  person,  but  "  one  born  of  woman"  is  the  Saviour.  For  everything 
that  is  formed  of  the  Creator  from  the  unorganized  stone  to  the  thought  of  righteous- 
ness in  the  heart  of  the  race  there  must  be  a  matrix.  In  the  creation  and  in  the  re- 
creation of  his  human  child  God  makes  woman  and  the  soul  of  woman  his  blessed 
organ  and  instrument.  When  woman  clears  herself  of  her  own  perversions,  her  self- 
imposed  limitations,  returns  to  her  spiritual  power  and  place,  and  cries,  Behold  the 
handmaid  of  the  Lord ;  be  it  unto  me  according  to  thy  word,"  then  shall  the  spirit 
descend  unto  her  ;  then  shall  come  the  redemption. 

Take  this  for  the  starting-point ;  it  is  the  key. 

Within,  behind,  antecedent  to  all  result  in  action,  are  the  place  and  office  of  the 
woman  by  the  law  of  woman-life.  And  all  question  of  her  deed  and  duty  should  be 
brought  to  this  test.  Is  it  of  her  own  interior  natural  relation,  putting  her  at  her  true 
advantage,  harmonious  with  the  key  to  which  her  life  is  set?  I  think  this  suffrage 
question  must  settle  itself  precisely  upon  this  ground  principle,  and  that  all  argu- 
ment should  range  conclusively  around  it.  Judging  so,  we  should  find,  I  think,  thait 
not  at  the  polls,  where  the  last  .utterance  of  a  people's  voice  is  given — where  the 
results  of  character  and  conscience  and  intelligence  are  shown — is  her  best  and 
rightful  work ;  on  the  contrary,  that  it  is  useless  here,  unless  first  done  elsewhere. 
But  where  little  children  learn  to  think  and  speak — where  men  love  and  listen  and 
the  word  is  forming — is  the  office  she  has  to  fill,  the  errand  she  has  to  do.  The  ques- 
tion is,  can  she  do  both  ?  Is  there  need  that  she  should  do  both  ?  Does  not  the  former 
and  greater  include  the  later  and  less? 

Hers  are  indeed  the  primary  meetings :  in  her  nursery,  her  home,  and  social  circles; 
with  other  women,  with  young  men,  upon  whose  tone  and  character  in  her  maturity 
her  womanhood  and  motherhood  join  their  beautiful  and  mighty  influence ;  above  all, 
among  young  girls — the  "little  women,"  to  whom  the  ensign  and  commission  are 
descending — is  her  undisputed  power.  Purify  politics?  Purify  the  sewers?  But 
what  if,  first,  the  springs,  and  reservoirs,  and  conduits  could  be  watched,  guarded, 
filtered,  and  then  the  using  be  made  clean  and  careful  all  through  the  homes ;  a  bet- 
ter system  devised  and  carried  out  for  separating,  neutralizing,  destroying  hurtful 
refuse?  Then  the  poisonous  gases  might  not  be  creeping  back  upon  us  through  our 
enforced  economies,  our  make-shifts  and  stop-gaps  of  outside  legislation ;  for  legisla- 
tion is,  after  all,  but  cut-off,  curb,  and  patch;  an  external,  troublesome,  partial,  un- 
certain application  of  hindrance  and  remedy.  Wha,t  physician  will  work  with  lotion 
and  plaster  when  he  can  touch,  and  control,  and  heal  at  the  very  seat  of  the  disease? 

It  is  the  beginning  of  the  fulfillment  that  women  have  waked  to  the  consciousness 
that  they  have  not  as  yet  filled  their  full  place  in  human  life  and  affairs.  Only  has 
not  the  'mistake  been  made  of  contending  with  and  grappling  results  when  causes 


WOMAN  SUPFRAOE. 


17 


■wore  in  their  hands T  Have  they  not  let  go  the  niainsprinpR,  to  mn  after  and  in- 
effectually i)ii8h  with  pins  the  refractory  co<;s  upon  tlio  wIkm  I  riuisT 

Woman  ahvays  deserts  herself  when  she  puts  lior  lifo  aud  motive  and  infliu'iico  in 
mere  outsidos.  Outside  of  fashiou  aud  place,  outside  of  cluirm  ami  apparrl,  out- 
side of  work  and  ambition — she  nnist  learn  that  tli(!s»i  are  iu)t  her  true  sliowinj;s;  she 
must  go  back  aud  put  herself  where  God  has  called  her  to  ]hi  with  hiuiself,  at  the 
^  eileut,  holy  inmost;  then  we  shall  feci,  if  not  at  ouc(\  yet  sur(dy  soon  or  sonu'tiuie,  a 
new  order  beginning.  He,  the  Father  of  all,  gives  it  to  us  to  be  tlH>  motherhood. 
That  is  the  great  solving  and  upraising  word;  not  limited  to  mere  jmrenfage,  but  the 
law  of  woman-life.  For  good  or  for  evil  she  motluus  the  world.  Not  all  are  called  t«> 
motherhood  in  the  literal  sense,  but  all  are  called  to  tlu?  great,  true  motherhood  in 
some  of  its  manifold  trusts  aud  obligations.  ^^Nohlcssv  oJilit/c you  can  not  l.'iy  it 
down.  "  More  are  tlui  children  of  the  desolate  than  of  her  who  hath  a  husband." 
All  the  little  children  that  are  born  must  look  to  womanhood  somewherj!  for  mother- 
ing. Do  they  all  get  it  f  All  the  works  aud  ])olicies  of  men  look  back  somewhere 
for  a  true  ''desire"  toward  and  by  which  only  they  can  rule.  Is  the  desire  of  the 
woman — of  the  home,  the  mother-motive  of  the  world  and  human  living — kept  in  the 
integrity  and  beauty  for  which  it  was  intrusted  to  her,  that  it  might  move  the  power 
of  man  to  noble  ends  ? 

Do  you  ask  the  governing  of  the  nation?  You  have  the  making  of  the  nation. 
Would  you  choose  your  statesmen?    First  make  your  statesmen. 

Indeed  the  whole  cause  on  trial  may  be  summarily  ended  by  the  proving  of  an  alibi, 
an  elsewhere  of  demand.  Is  woman  needed  at  the  caucuses,  conventions,  polls  ?  Sho 
is  neeiled,  at  the  same  time,  elsewhere.  Two  years  of  time  and  strength,  of  thought 
and  love,  from  some  woman,  are  essential  for  every  little  human  being,  that  he  nuiy 
even  begin  "a  life.  When  you  remember  that  every  man  is  once  a  little  child,  born  of  a 
woman,  trained — or  needing  training — at  a  woman's  hands;  that  of  the  little  men, 
every  one  of  whom  takes  and  shapes  his  life  so,  come  at  length  the  hand  for  the  helm, 
the  voice  for  the  law,  aud  the  arm  to  enforce  the  law — what  do  yon  want  more  for  a 
woDian's  opportunity  and  control? 

Which  would  you  choose  as  a  force,  an  advantage,  in  settling  any  question  of 
public  moment,  or  as  touching  your  own  private  interest  through  the  general  man- 
agement, the  right  to  go  upon  election  day  aud  cast  one  vote,  or  a  hold  before- 
hand upon  the  individual  ear  and  attention  of  each  voter  now  qualilied  ?  The  abil- 
ity to  present  to  him  your  argument,  to  show  him  the  real  point  at  issue,  to  convince 
and  persuade  him  of  the  right  and  lasting,  instead  of  the  weak  and  brielly  politic 
way  f  This  initial  privilege  is  in  the  hands  of  woman,  assuming  that  she  can  be 
brought  to  feel  and  act  as  a  unit,  which  appears  to  be  what  is  claimed  for  her  in  the 
argument  for  her  regeneration  of  the  outer  political  w^orld.  But  already  aud  sei>a- 
rately,  if  every  intelligent,  conscientious  woman  can  but  reach  one  man,  and  inlliienco 
him  from  the  principle  involved — from  her  interior  perception  of  it,  kept  pure  on  {)ur- 
pose  from  bias  aud  temptation  that  assail  him  in  the  outsi<le  mix  and  jostle — will 
she  not  have  done  her  work  without  the  casting  of  a  ballot  ?  Aud  what  becom«'s  of 
"taxation  without  representation,"  when,  from  Eden  down.  Eve  can  always  plead 
with  Adam,  can  have  the  first  word  instead  of  the  last — if  she  knows  what  that  tiist 
word  is,  in  herself  and  thence  in  its  ])ower  with  him — can  beguile  him  to  his  good  in- 
stead of  to  his  harm,  as  indeed  she  only  meant  to  do  in  that  liist  ignorant  <'xperiment  ? 
Would  it  be  any  less  easy  to  qualify  for  aud  accomi)lish  this  tliau  to  convince  antl 
outnumber  in  ])ublic  gatherings  not  only  bodies  of  men  but  the  mass  of  women  that 
will  also  have  to  be  confronted  aud  convinced  or  overborne? 

Preconceived  oi)inioi)s,  minds  made  up,  men  not  so  easily  beguiled  to  the  puregoo<l, 
you  say  ?  Woman  (|uit<>  as  ai)t  to  make  mistak<'s  out  ot  Paradise  as  in  ?  That 
only  returns  us  to  the  primal  need  and  opportunity.  Get  the  mau  to  listen  to  .vou 
before  his  mind  is  made  up,  before  his  manhood  is  made  up;  whih^  it  is  in  the  uuik- 
ing.  That  is  just  the  pow<ir  and  i)lace  that  belong  to  you,  and  you  must  no'\/.f  au«l 
fill.  It  is  your  natural  right;  God  gave  it  to  yon.  "The  seed  of  the  woman  shall 
bruise  the  serpent's  head." 

We  can  not  do  all  in  one  day,  and  in  such  a  day  of  the  world  as  this.  We  plant 
trees  for  posterity,  where  forests  have  been  laid  wastt*,  aud  the  ln'aiititiil  work  of  life 
is  to  be  done  over  again;  we  can  not  expect  to  see  our  fruit  in  souls  ami  in  the 
nation  at  less  cost  of  faith  aud  time.  Take  care,  then,  of  the  little  chihlreu— the 
men-children — to  niake  men  of  them;  the  womeu-chihlren — oh,  yes,  even  above 
all — to  make  ready  for  future  mothering;  to  snatch  from  the  «>vil  that  works  <>vor 
against  pure  womanliness.  Until  you  have  done  this  let  men  feud  for  themH««lvea 
in  rough  outsides  a  little  longer;  except,  j)erhaps,  as  wis(\  able  women  whom  the 
trying  transition  time  calls  forth  may  lind  tit  way  aiul  ]>la(  (^  for  effort  and  ]tr«)test — 
there  is  always  room  for  that,  and  noble  work  has  been  and  is  being  d(Mie  ;  but  do 
not  rear  Ji  new  generation  of  women  to  expect  and  desire  charges  and  ri'spousibilities 
reversive  of  their  own  life-law,  through  whoso  perfect  fullilluuMit  alone  uuiy  the  future 
clean  place  be  made  for  all  to  work  in. 

S.  Rep.  2543,  pt.  2  2 


18 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


Is  there  excess  of  female  population  ?  Can  not  all  expect  the  direct  rule  of  a  home  f 
Is  not  this  exactly,  perhaps,  just  now,  for  the  more  universal  remedial  mothering 
that  in  this  age  is  the  thing  immediately  needed?  Let  her  who  has  no  child  seek 
where  she  can  help  the  burdened  mother  of  many  ;  how  she  can  best  reach  with  influ- 
ence, and  wisdom,  and  cherishing,  the  greatest  number — or  most  efficiently  a  few— 
of  these  dear,  helpless,  terrible  little  souls,  who  are  to  make,  in  a  few  years,  a  new 
social  condition  ;  a  better  and  higher,  happier  and  safer,  or  a  lower,  worse,  bitterer, 
more  desperately  complicated  and  distressful  one. 

"Desire  earnestly  the  best  gifts,"  said  St.  Paul,  after  enumerating  the  gifts  of 
teaching,  and  prophecy  and  authority  ;  and  I  show  you,"  he  goes  on,  a  yet  more 
excellent  way."  Chanty,  not  mere  alms,  or  toleration,  or  general  benignity,  out  of  a 
safe  self-provision  ;  but  caritas,  nearness,  and  caring,  and  loving,  the  very  essence  of 
mothering;  the  way  to  and  hold  of  the  heart  of  it  all,  the  heart  of  the  life  of  hu- 
manity. "  Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence  ;  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life." 
That  is  the  first  word;  it  charges  womaniiood  itself,  which  must  be  set  utterly  right 
before  it  can  take  hold  to  right  the  world.  Hero  are  at  once  task,  and  mission,  and 
rewarding  sway. 

Woman  has  got  off  the  track  ;  she  must  see  that  first,  and  replace  herself.  We  are 
mothering  the  world  still;  but  we  are  mothering  it,  in  a  fearfully  wide  measure,  all 
wrong. 

Sacrifice  isthe  beginning  of  all  redemption.  We  must  give  up.  We  must  even  give 
up  the  wish  and  seeming  to  have  a  hand  in  things,  that  we  may  work  unseen  in  the 
elements,  and  make  them  fit  and  healthful ;  that-daily  bread  and  daily  life  may  be 
sweet  again  in  dear,  old,  homely  ways,  and  plentiful  with  all  truly  blessed  opportu- 
nities. We  are  not  to  organize  the  world,  or  to  conquer  it,  or  to  queen  it.  We  are 
just  to  take  it  again  and  mother  it.  If  woman  would  begin  that,  search  out  the  cra- 
dles of  life  and  character,  and  take  care  of  the  whole  world  of  fifty  years  hence,  in 
taking  care  of  them  calling  upon  men  and  the  State  when  needful  to  authorize  her 
action  and  furnish  outward  means  for  it,  I  wonder  what  might  come,  as  earnest  of 
good,  even  in  this  our  day,  in  which  we  know  not  our  visitation.  . 

And  here  again  come  allowance  and  exception  for  what  women  can  always  do  when 
this  world-njothering  forces  an  appeal  to  the  strength  and  authority  of  man.  Wojuen 
have  never  been  prevented  from  doing  their  real  errands  in  the  world,  even  outside 
the  domestic  boundary.  They  have  defended  their  husband's  castles  in  the  old  chiv- 
alrous times,  when  the  male  chivalry  was  away  at  the  crusades.  They  have  headed 
.armies  when  Heaven  called  them  ;  only  Heaven  never  called  all  the  women  at  once; 
but  when  the  king  was  crowned,  the  mission  done,  they  have  turned  back  with  de- 
sire to  their  sheltered,  gentle,  unobtrusive  life  again.  There  has  no  business  to  be  a 
standing  army  of  women  ;  not  even  a  standing  political  arm3^  Women  have  navi- 
gated and  brought  home  ships  when  commanders  have  died  or  been  stricken  help- 
less upon  the  ocean  ;  they  have  done  true,  intelligent,  patient  work  for  science,  art, 
religion;  and  those  have  done  the  most  who  have  never  stopped  to  contend  first, 
whether  a  woman,  as  such,  may  do  it  or  not.  Look  at  what  Dorothea  Dix  has  done, 
single-liandcd,  single-mouthed,  in  asylums  and  before  legislatures.  Women  have 
sat  on  thrones,  and  governed  kingdoms  well,  when  that  w^as  the  station  in  life  to 
which  God  called  them.  If  Victoria  of  England  has  been  anything  she  has  been 
the  mother  other  land  ;  flhe  has  been  queen  and  protecting  genius  of  its  womanhood 
and  homes.  And  when  a  woman  does  these  things,  as  called  of  God,  not  talks  of  them, 
as  to  whether  she  may  make  claim  to  do  them,  she  carries  a  weight  from  the  very  sanctity 
out  of  whi(;h  she  steps  as  woman,  that  moves  men  unlike  the  moving  of  any  other 
power.  Shall  she  resign  the  chance  of  doing  really  great  things,  of  meeting  gra;nd 
ciises,  by  making  herself  common  in  ward-rooms  and  at  street-corners,  and  abolishing 
the  perfect  idea  of  home  by  no  longer  consecrating  herself  to  it  ? 

If  individual  woman,  as  has  been  said,  may  gain  and  influence  individual  man  and 
so  the  man-power  in  affairs — a  body  of  women,  purely  as  such,  with  cause,  and  plea, 
and  reason,  can  always  have  the  ear  and  attention  of  bodies  of  nuiu  ;  but,  to  do  this, 
they  niust  conje  straight  from  their  home  sanctities,  as  representing  them— as  able  to 
represent  them  othei^vise  than  men,  because  of  their  heartli-priestesshood ;  not  as 
politicians,  bred  and  hardened  in  the  public  arenas. 

That  the  family  is  the  heart  of  the  State,  and  that  the  State  is  but  the  widened 
family,  is  the  fact  which  the  old  vestal  consecration,  power,  and  honor  set  forth  and 
kept  in  mind. 

The  voice  which  has  of  late  been  so  generally  conceded  to  women  in  town  decis- 
ions as  regarding  public  schools,  is  an  instance  of  the  fittingness  of  relegating  to 
them  certain  interests  of  which  they  should  know  more  than  men,  because— ap- 
plying the  key-test  with  which  we  have  started— it  has  direct  relation  to,  and 
springs  from,  their  motherhood.  But  can  one  help  suggesting  that  if  the  movement 
had  been  to  place  women,  merely  and  directly,  upon  the  committees,  by  votes  of  men 
who  saw  that  this  work  might  be  in  great  part  best  done  by  them;  if  women  had 
asked  and  offered  for  the  place  without  the  jostle  of  the  town-meeting,  or  putting 


WOMAN  SUFFKAGE. 


19 


in  that  wedge  for  the  ballot,  the  thing  might  hivve  bwii  readily  done,  aiul  the 
objection,  or  political  precedent,  avoided? 

It  is  not  the  real  opport  nnity,  when  that  arises  or  sliows  itself  in  the  line  of  her  life- 
law,  that  is  to  be  retuse<l  for  woman.  It  is  the  taking  from  internal  power  to  H<ld  to 
external  complication  of  machinery  and  to  the  fricti<jn  of  strife.  J^et  ns  jnst  touch 
upon  someof  the  cnrnuit  argnmcnts  concerning  these  ('Xternal  impositions  which  one 
set  is  demanding  and  tln)  other  entreating  against. 

If  voting  is  to  be  the  chief  })ower  in  woman's  hands,  or  even  a  |>ower  of  half  tho 
moment  that  is  contended  for  it,  it  will  grow  to  be  the  motive  and  en<l,  the  all-ab- 
sorbing  object,  with  women  that  it  is  with  men. 

The  gnbernatorial  canvass,  the  Presiilential  year — these  will  interrnpt  and  clog 
all  home  bnsiness,  snspend  decisions,  ])aralyze  plans,  as  they  do  with  mm,  or  elm?  we 
shall  not  be  much,  as  thorough  politicians,  after  all.  And  if  we  talk  of  mending  all 
that — of  putting  politics  in  their  right  place,  and  governing  by  pnro  princ  iplo  in- 
stead of  party  trick  and  stumping  and  electioneering — w<»  go  back  in  rllcci  to  tho 
ackuowletlgment  that  only  in  the  interior  work,  and  behind  politics,  cau  womou  do 
better  things  at  all ;  which,  precisely,  was  to  be  demonstrated. 

Think,  simply,  of  election  day  for  women. 

Would  it  be  so  invariably  easy  a  thing  for  a  home-keeper  to  do,  at  the  one  oppor- 
tunity of  the  year,  or  the  four  years,  on  a  particular  day,  her  duty  in  this  matter? 
It  is  easy  to  say  that  it  takes  no  more  time  than  a  huiulred  other  things  that  some  do ; 
but  setting  apart  all  the  argument  that  previous  time  and  strength  must  have  been 
spent  in  pro])erly  qualifying,  how  many  of  the  hundred  other  tilings  are  done  now 
without  interrui)tion,  postpouement,  hinderance,  through  domestic  contingencies?  or 
are  there  a  hundred  other  things  done  when  the  home  contingencies  are  really  vust  by 
a  wonniu?  A  woman's  life  is  not  like  a  num's.  That  a  man's  life  may  be — th.it  he 
may  transact  his  out-door  bnsiness;  keep  his  hours  and  appointments;  may  cast  his 
vote  ou  election  day;  may  represent  wife  and  children  in  all  wherein  the  commnnity 
cares  for,  or  might  injure  him  and  them — the  woman,  some  woman,  must  be  at  the 
home  post,  that  the  home  order  may  go  on,  from  which  he  derives  that  command  of 
time  and  freedom  from  hindering  necessities,  which  leave  him  to  his  work.  And  so, 
as  the  old  proverb  says,  while  man's  work  is  from  sun  to  sun — made  detinite,  a  mat- 
ter to  which  he  can  go  forth  and  from  which  he  can  come  in — a  woman's  work,  of 
keeping  the  place  of  the  forth-going  and  incoming,  is  never  done,  from  the  very  nature 
and  ceaseless  importance  of  it. 

Must  she  go  to  the  polls,  sick  or  well,  baby  or  no  baby,  servant  or  no  servant, 
strength  or  no  strength,  desire  or  no  desire?  If  she  have  cook  and  housemaid  they 
are  to  go  also,  and  nuniber  her  two  to  one,  any  way;  probably  on  election  day,  which 
they  would  make  a  holiday,  they  would — as  at  other  crises,  of  birth,  sickness,  death, 
house-cleaning,  which  should  occur  in  no  first-class  families — come  down  upon  her 
with  their  appropriate  coup  d'etat,  and  ''leave;"  making  the  state-stroke,  in  this  in- 
stance, of  scoring  three  votes,  two  dropped  and  one  lost,  for  the  irrepressible  side. 

How  will  it  be  when  Norah  and  Maggie  and  Katie  have  not  only  their  mass  and 
confession,  their  Fourth-of-July  and  Christmas,  their  mission  weeks,  their  social  en- 
gagements and  family  plans,  and  their  appointments  with  their  dress-makers,  to  cur- 
tail your  claims  upon  their  bargained  time  and  service,  but  their  share  in  the  primary 
meetings  and  caucuses,  committees  and  torch-light  processions  and  mass  meetings? 
For  what  shall  prevent  the  excitements,  the  pleasurings,  the  runnings  hither  and 
thither  that  men  delight  in  from  following  in  the  train  of  politics  aiul  parties  with 
the  common  Avoman  ?  Perhaps  it  nuiy  even  be  discovered,  to  the  still  further  detri- 
ment of  our  already  painfully-hampered  and  i)erplexed  domestic  system  that  the  pur- 
suit of  fun,  votes,  oihces  is  more  remunerative,  as  well  as  gentlewomanly — ;is 
Micawber  might  express  it— than  the  cleansing  of  i>ots  and  ])ans,  the  weekly  wash, 
or  the  watching  of  the  roast.  Perhai)s  in  that  enfranchised  day  there  will  be  no 
Katies  and  Maggies,  and  the  Norahs  will  know  their  place  no  more. 

Then  the  enlighttMUid  womanhood  may  have  to  begin  at  the  foundation,  and  glorify 
the  kitchen  again.  And  good  enough  for  her,  in  tlie  wide  as  well  as  primitivt*  senso 
of  the  phrase,  and  a  grand  turn  in  the  history  that  re])eats  itself  towaril  the  old,  for- 
gotten, }>eaceful  side  of  the  cycle  it  may  be! 

Hut  the  argument  does  not  rest  upon  any  such  points  as  these.  It  rests  upon  tlie 
ins>ide  nature  of  a  woman's  work  ;  upon  the  need  there  is  to  begin  again  to-day  at 
the  heart  of  things  and  make  that  right ;  upon  the  evident  fact  that  this  cau  be  »lone 
none  too  soon  or  earnestly,  if  the  community  ami  th(^  country  iiiti  not  to  keep  on  in 
the  broad  way  to  a  threatened  destruction  ;  'aml  upon  the  e<utainty  that  it  can  neviT 
bt<  done  unless  it  is  done  by  woman,  and  with  all  of  woman's  might.  Not  l»y  struggles 
for  new  and  diHeriMit  i)lace.  but  by  the  l)etter,  mom  loving,  mor«^  intelligent  tlt'ep- 
seeing  and  deep-feeling  tilling  of  her  own  place,  that  luuw  will  disputt^  and  none  ran 
take  from  her.  We  ar«^  not  where  woman  was  in  the  oUl  brutal  days  that  are  8<M»ft««n 
quoted;  and  we  shall  not,  need  not,  return  to  that.  Christianity  has  diHp»)sed  of  that 
sort  of  argument.    We  are  on  a  vantage  ground  for  the  doing  of  our  real  essential 


20 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


work  better  than  it  has  been  done  ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  world ;  and  we 
are  madly  leaving  our  work  and  our  vantage  together.  The  great  step  made  by  wo- 
man was  in  the  generation  preceding  this  one  of  restlessness — the  restlessness  that 
has  come  through  the  first  feeling  of  great  power.  It  was  made  in  the  time  when  wo- 
men learned  physiology,  that  they  might  rear  and  nurse  their  families  and  help  their 
neighborhoods  understandingly ;  science,  that  they  might  teach  and  answer  little 
children,  and  share  the  joy  of  knowledge  that  was  spreading  swiftly  in  the  earth  ; 
political  history  and  economy,  that  they  might  listen  and  talk  to  their  brothers  and 
husbands  and  sons,  and  leaven  the  life  of  the  age  as  the  bread  in  the  mixing ;  business, 
figures,  rules,  and  principles,  that  they  might  sympathize,  counsel,  help,  andpruden- 
tially  work  with  and  honestly  strengthen  the  bread-winners.  The  good  work  was 
begun  in  the  schools  where  girls  were  first  told,  as  George  B.  Emerson  used  to  tell  us 
Boston  girls,  that  we  were  learning  everything  he  could  teach  us,  in  order  to  be  women, 
wives,  mothers,  friends,  social  influencers,  in  the  best  and  largest  way  possible.  Women 
grew  strong  and  capable  under  such  instruction  and  motive.  Are  their  daughters  and 
granddaughters  about  to  leap  the  fence,  leave  their  own  realm  little  cared  for — or 
doomed  to  be — undertake  the  whole  scheme  of  outside  creation,  or  contest  it  with  the 
men  ?   Then  God  help  the  men !  God  save  the  Commonwealth ! 

We  are  past  the  point  already  where  homes  are  suffering,  or  liable  to  suffer,  neglect  or 
inj  ury ;  they  are  already  left  unmade.  Shall  this  go  on  1  Between  frivolities  aud  ambi- 
tious, between  social  vanities,  and  shows,  and  public  meddlings  and  mixings — for 
where  one  woman  is  needed  and  doing  really  brave,  true  work,  there  are  a  hundred 
rushing  forth  for  the  mere  sake  of  rushing — is  the  primitive  home,  the  power  of  heaven 
upon  earth,  to  slip  away  from  among  us  ?  Let  us  not  build  outsides  which  have  no 
insides ;  let  us  not  put  a  face  upon  things  which  has  no  reality  behind  it.  Beware 
lest  we  make  the  confusion  that  we  need  the  suffrage  to  help  us  unmake;  lest  we  tear 
to  pieces  that  we  may  patch  again.    Crazy  patchwork  that  would  be,  indeed ! 

Are  women's  votes  required  because  men  will  not  legislate  away  evils  that  they  do 
not  heartily  wish  away  ?  Is  government  corrupted  because  men  desire  shield  and 
opportunity  for  dishonest  speculation,  authority  and  countenance  for  nefarious  com- 
binations ?  The  more  need  to  go  to  work  at  the  beginning  rather  than  to  plunge  into 
the  pitch  and  be  defiled  ;  more  need  to  make  haste  and  educate  a  better  generation  of 
m^n,  if  it  be  so  we  can  not,  except  vi  et  armis,  influence  the  generation  that  is. 

But  do  you  think  that  if  women  are  in  earnest — enough  in  earnest  to  give  up,  as 
they  seem  to  be  to  demand — they  might  not  bring  their  real  power  to  bear  even  upon 
these  evil  things,  in  their  root  and  inception,  aud  even  now  ?  Suppose  women  would 
not  live  in  houses,  or  wear  jewels  and  gowns,  that  are  bought  for  them  out  of  wicked 
millions  made  upon  the  stock  exchange?  Suppose  they  would  stop  decorating  their 
dwellings  to  an  agony,  crowding  them  hurriedly  with  this  and  that  of  the  last  and 
newest,  just  because  it  is  last  and  new,  making  as  how  and  rivalry  of  what  is  not  a 
true-grown  beauty  of  a  home  at  all,  but  a  meremeretriciousness  ;  suppose  they  would 
80  set  to  work  and  change  society  that  displays  and  feastings,  which  use  up  at  every 
separate  one  a  yeai-'s  comfortable  suj^port  for  a  quiet,  modest  family,  should  be  given 
up  as  vulgarities ;  that  people  should  care  for,  and  be  ready  for,  a  true  interchange  of 
life  and  thought,  and  simple,  uncrowded  opportunities  for  these.  Suppose  womeji 
would  say,  No  ;  I  will  not  blaze  at  Newport,  or  run  through  Europe  dropping  Ameri- 
can eagles  on  English  sovereigns  after  me  like  the  trail  ol  a  comet,  or  the  crumbs  that 
Hop-o'-niy  thumb  let  fall  from  his  pocket  that  the  people  at  home  might  track  the  way 
he  had  gone  ;  because,  if  I  have  money,  there  is  better  w  ork  to  be  done  with  it ;  and  I 
will  not  have  the  money  that  is  made  by  gambling  manipulations  aud  cheats."  Do  you 
think  this  would  have  no  influence  f  More  than  that,  and  further  back,  aud  lowlier 
down,  suppose  they  should  say,  every  one,  I  will  not  have  the  new,  convenient  house, 
the  fresh  carpetings,  the  pretty  curtains,  or  even  the  least,  most  fitting  freshness,  until 
I  know  the  means  are  earned  for  me  with  honest  service  to  the  world,  and  by  no  lucky 
turn  of  even  a  small  speculation."  Further  back  yet,  suppose  them  to  declare,  I  will 
not  have  the  home  at  all,  nor  my  own  happiness,  unless  it  can  be  based  and  builded 
on  the  kind  of  life-work  that  helps  to  make  a  real  prosperity  ;  tliat  really  goes  to.the 
building  and  safe-keeping  of  a  whole  nation  of  such  homes."  Would  there  be  no 
power  in  that  ?  Would  it  not  be  a  kind  of  woman-suffrage  to  settle  the  very  initials 
of  all  that  ever  bears  upon  the  public  question  ?  And  to  bring  that  sort  of  woman  on 
the  stage,  and  to  the  front,  is  there  not  enough  work  to  do,  aud  enough  higher  edu- 
cation" to  insist  on  and  secure? 

After  all,  men  work  for  women;  or,  if  they  think  they  don't,  it  would  leave  them 
but  sorry  satisfaction  to  abandon  them  to  such  existence  as  they  could  arrange  with- 
out us.  In  blessed  homes,  or  in  scattered  dissipations  of  show,  amusement,  or  the 
worse  which  these  shows  and  amusements  are  but  terribly  akin  to,  women  give  pur- 
pose to  and  direct  the  results  of  all  men's  work.  If  the  false  staudards  of  living  first 
urge  them,  until  at  length  the  horrible  intoxication  ofthegame  itself  drives  them  on 
further  and  deeper,  are  we  less  responsible  for  the  last  state  of  those  men  than  for  the 
first! 


WOMAN  SUFFKAGE. 


21 


Do  you  say,  if  good  women  refuse  thoKe  tbin^H  and  tried  for  a  Himpler  and  truer 
living,  there  are  plenty  of  bad  ones  who  wouhl  take  tlieni  anyhow,  and  supply  the 
motive  to  deeper  and  more  unmitigated  evil  f  Ah,  theni  come  hot  li  answer  and  er- 
rand again.  Raise  the  fallen — at  least  save  the  growing  womanhood— Htop  tin-  de- 
struction that  rushes  accelerating  on,  before  you  challenge  n«'.w  dilliculty  ami  danger 
with  an  indiHcriminate  franchise.  Are  not  theHa  bad  wonuMi  the  v(My  "  plenty  "  that 
would  out-balance  you  at  the  polls,  if  you  persist  in  trying  the  "  patch-aiid-i'»la.st«?r  " 
renu^dy  of  sntVrage  and  legislation  ? 

Kecognize  the  fact,  the  law,  that  your  power,  your  high  commission,  is  inward — 
vital— formative  and  causal.  Bring  all  question  of  choice  or  duty  to  this  ivht  :  Will 
it  work  at  the  heart  of  things,  among  the  realities  and  forces?  'J'ry  your  own  lifr  l)y 
this;  remember  that  mere  external  is  falsehood  and  death.  The  letter  killcih.  (Jive 
up  all  that  is  only  of  the  appearance — or  even  chielly  so,  in  conscious  (hilight  and 
motive— in  person,  surrounding,  pursuit.  Let  yourself-presentation,  your  liomr-niak- 
ing  and  adorning,  our  social  effort  and  interest,  your  occupation  and  use  of  talent,  all 
shape  and  issue  for  the  things  that  are  essentially  and  integrally  good,  and  that  the 
world  needs  to  have  prevail.  Until  you  can  do  this,  and  induce  such  doing,  it  is 
of  little  use  to  clamor  for  mere  outward  right,  or  to  contend  that  it  would  l}e  rightly 
applied. 

Work  as  jwu  will,  and  widely  as  you  can,  for  schools,  in  associations,  in  everything 
whoso  end  is  to  teach,  enlighten,  enlarge  women,  and  so  the  world.  Help  and  pro- 
tect the  industries  of  women  ;  but  keep  those  industries  within  the  guiding  law  of 
woman-life.  Do  not  throw  down  barriers  that  take  down  safeguards  with  1  hem; 
that  make  threatening  breaches  in  the  very  social  structure.  If  women  must  sim  vc 
in  shops,  demand  and  care  for  it  that  it  shall  be  in  a  less  mixed,  a  more  shielded 
way  than  now.  The  great  caravanaries  of  trade  are  perilous  by  their  throng,  pub- 
licity, and  weariness.  There  used  to  be  women's  shops — choice  places,  wlnnc  a  wom- 
an's care  and  taste  had  ruled  before  the  counters  were  spread;  where  women  could 
(juietly  purchase  things  that  were  sure  to  be  beautiful  or  of  good  service  ;  th<'r(i  were 
not  the  tumult  and  ransacking  that  kill  both  shop-girl  and  8hopj)er  now.  This  is  one 
instance,  and  but  one,  of  the  rescuing  that  ought  to  be  attempted.  There  ought 
at  least  to  be  distinct  women's  departments,  presided  over  by  women  of  good,  moth- 
erly tone  and  character,  in  the  places  of  business  which  women  so  frequent,  and 
where  the  thoughtful  are  aware  of  much  that  makes  them  tremble.  And  surely  a 
great  many  of  the  girls  and  women  who  choose  shop  work,  because  they  like  its  ex- 
citement, ought  rather  to  be  in  homes,  rendering  womanly  service,  and  i)rei)aring 
to  serve  in  homes  of  their  own — leaving  their  present  places  to  young  men  who  might 
perhaps  begin  so  to  earn  the  homes  to  offer  them.  Will  not  this  apply  all  the  way 
up,  into  the  arts  and  the  professions  even  ?  There  must  needs  bo  exceptional  women 
perhaps;  there  are,  and  will  be,  time  and  errand  and  place  for  them  ;  but  Heaven 
forbid  that  they  should  all  become  exceptional ! 

Once  more,  work  for  these  things  that  are  behind,  and  underlie;  believing  that 
woman's  place  is  behind  and  within,  not  of  repression,  but  of  power;  and  that  if  she 
do  not  lill  this  place  it  will  be  empty  ;  there  will  be  no  main-spring.  Meanwhile  she 
will  get  her  rights  as  she  rises  to  them,  and  her  defenses  where  she  needs  them; 
everything  that  helps,  defends,  uplifts  the  woman  uplifts  man  and  the  whole  fabric, 
and  man  has  begun  to  find  it  out.  If  he  will  give  the  sutfrage  if  women  want  it," 
as  is  said,  why  shall  he  not  as  well  give  them  the  things  that  they  want  sutlVag*'  for. 
and  that  they  are  cai)able  of  representing  f  Believe  me,  this  work,  and  the  rcprcMMi- 
tation  which  grows  out  of  it,  can  no  longer  be  done  if  we  attempt  the  handling 
of  political  machinery — the  making  of  i>latforms,  the  judging  <d"  candidates,  the 
measuring  and  disputation  of  party  plans  and  issues,  and  all  tlui  tortuous  follow- 
ing uj)  of  public  and  ])ersonal  political  history.  Do  you  say  men  have  their  in<li- 
vidual  work  in  the  world,  and  all  this  beside  and  of  it,  and  that  therefore  wr  may  ' 
Exactly  here  comes  in  again  the  law  of  the  interior.  Their  work  is  "of  it'  —falls  in 
the  way.  They  rub  against  it  as  they  go  along.  Men  meet  each  other  in  the  busi- 
ness thoroughfares,  at  the  offices,  and  the  street  corners;  w<^  are  in  the  dear  <lepths 
of  home.  W(5  are  with  the  little  ones,  of  whom  is  not  tins  king«huu,  but  tlu>  king- 
dom of  heaven,  which  we,  through  them,  nuiy  helj)  to  come,  'i'his  is  just  where  we 
nuist  al)andon  our  work,  if  we  attenq)t  the  doing  of  thi^rs.  And  here  is  where  our 
pnvstigo  will  desert  us,  whenever  great  cause  calls  us  tospeak  fi«un  out  our  seclusi<Mis, 
and  show  uumi,  from  our  insights  and  our  i)lace,  the  occasion  and  desin^  t  hat  look  unto 
th«ur  rule.    They  will  m)t  listen  then  ;  they  will  remand  us  to  tlu5  l»allot-l»ox. 

"Inside  i)olitics"  is  a  goo<l  word.  That  is  just,  where  woman  ought  tt>  be,  as  she 
ought  to  bo  insidii  everything;  insisting  upon  and  implanting  the  truth  and  right 
that  are  to(!onriu«u\  And  she  cannot  be  inside  and  outsidts  botli.  She  can  not  do  the 
mothering  and  the  home-making,  the  watching  and  ministry,  the  earning  an«l  main- 
taining hold  and  privilege  and  n>otive  influence  behind  and  through  the  acts  of  mm, 
and  all  the  world-wide  execution  of  act  liesidc.  Therefore  wt^  sa>  ,  do  not  givt>  u|> 
the  substance  which  you  might  seize,  for  the  shadow  which  you  could  not  hold  fast 


22 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


if  you  were  to  seem  to  grasp  it.  Work  on  at  the  foundations.  Insist  on  truth  and 
right ;  put  them  into  all  your  own  life,  taking  all  the  beam  out  of  your  own  eye  be- 
fore demanding — well,  we  will  say  the  mote,  for  generosity's  sake,  and  for  the  holy 
authority  of  the  word — out  of  the  brother's  eyes.  Establish  pure,  honest,  lovely 
things — things  of  good  report — in  the  nurseries,  the  schools,  the  social  circles  where 
you  reign  and  the  outside  world,  and  issue  will  take  form  and  heed  for  themselves. 
The  nation,  of  which  the  family  is  the  root,  will  be  made  and  built  and  saved  accord- 
ingly. Every  seed  hath  its  own  body.  The  seed  of  the  woman  shall  bruise  the 
serpent-head  of  evil,  and  shall  rise  triumphant  to  become  the  ennobled,  recreated 
commonwealth.  Then  shall  pour  forth  the  double  pjBan  that  thrills  through  the 
glorious  final  chorus  of  Schumann's  Faust — men  and  women  answering  in  antiphons — 

The  indescribable, 

Here  it  is  done ; 
The  ever-womanly 

Beckons  us  on  ! 

Then  shall  Mary — the  fulfilled,  ennobled  womanhood — sing  her  Magnificat;  stand- 
ing to  receive  from  the  Lord,  and  to  give  the  living  word  to  the  nations — 

My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord, 

And  my  spirit  hath  rejoiced  in  God,  my  Savior. 

Tor  He  hath  looked  upon  the  low  estate  of  His  handmaiden : 

For  behold,  from  henceforth  all  generations  shall  call  me  blessed. 

For  He  that  is  mighty  hath  done  to  me  great  things ; 

And  ho\y  is  His  name. 

And  His  mercy  is  unto  generations  and  generations. 

The  coming  new  version  of  the  Old  Testament  gives  us,  we  are  told,  among  other 
more  perfect  renderings,  this  one,  which  fitly  utters  charge  and  jjromise  : 


The  Lord  gave  the  word ; 
Great  was  the  company 

Of  those 
That  published  it. 


The  Lord  giveth  the  word ; 
And  the  women  that  bring 

Glad  tidings 
Are  a  great  host. 

Adeline  D.  T.  Whitney. 


The  minority  of  the  committee  ask  special  attention  to  "  Some  of  the 
Eeasons  against  Woman  Suffrage,  by  Francis  Parkraan,  printed  at  the 
request  of  an  association  of  women,"  which  are  as  follows: 

SOME  OF  THE  REASONS  AGAINST  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


THE   POWER  OF  SEX. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  question  of  the  rights  and  employment  of  women  should 
ho  treated  without  regard  to  sex.  It  should  rather  be  said  that  those  who  consider  it 
regardless  of  sex  do  not  consider  it  at  all.  It  will  not  do  to  exclude  from  the  problem 
the  chief  factor  in  it,  and  deal  with  women  ouly  as  if  they  were  smaller  and  weaker 
men.  Yet  these  have  been  the  tactics  of  the  agitators  for  female  snft'rage,  and  to 
them  they  mainly  owe  what  success  they  have  had.  Hence  their  extreme  sensitive- 
ness whenever  the  subject  is  approached  on  its  most  essential  side.  !f  it  could  be 
treated  like  other  subjects,  and  discussed  fully  and  freely,  the  cause  of  the  self-styled 
reformers  would  have  been  hopeless  from  the  first.  It  is  happy  for  them  that  the  re- 
lations of  women  to  society  can  not  be  so  discussed  without  giving  just  olfense. 
Their  most  important  considerations  can  be  touched  but  slightly;  and  even  then 
ofteuse  \vill  be  taken. 

Whatever  liberty  the  best  civilization  may  accord  to  women,  they  must  always  be 
subject  to  restrictions  unknown  to  the  other  sex,  and  they  can  never  dispense  with 
the  protecting  influences  which  society  throws  about  them.  A  man,  in  lonely  places, 
has  nothing  to  lose  but  life  and  property'  ;  and  he  has  nerve  and  nmscles  to  defend 
them.  He  is  free  to  go  whither  he  i^leases,  and  run  what  risks  he  pleases.  Without 
a  radical  change  in  human  nature,  of  which  the  world  has  never  given  the  faintest 
sign,  women  can  not  be  equally  emancipated.  It  is  not  a  question  of  custom,  habit, 
or  public  opinion,  but  of  an  all-pervading  force,  always  formidable  in  the  vast  num- 
ber of  men  in  whom  it  is  not  controlled  by  higher  forces.  A  woman  is  subject,  also, 
to  many  other  restrictions,  more  or  less  stringent,  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of 
self  respect  and  the  respect  of  others,  and  yet  placing  her  at  a  disadvantaije,  as  com- 
l)ared  to  men,  in  the  active  work  of  the  world.  All  this  is  mere  truism,  but  the 
plainest  truism  may  be  ignored  in  the  interest  of  a  theory  or  a  cause." 

Again,  everybody  knows  that  the  physical  and  mental  constitution  of  woman  is 
more  delicate  than  in  the  other  sex ;  and,  we  may  add,  the  relations  between  mind 
and  body  are  more  intimate  and  subtile.    It  is  true  that  they  are  abundantly  so  in 


WOMAN  8LlFKA(jii:. 


Dien  ;  but  their  harder  orfjjanisin  i.s  neither  80  Heiisitivo  to  (liHtiirhiii;;  inllnnicrh  nor 
subject  to  so  many  of  them. 

It  is  these  and  other  inlierent  eonditions,  joined  to  the  «!h;;roHHin;^  nature  of  a  wo- 
man's special  functions,  that  have  determined  thn)u^h  all  time  In-r  rchitive  jMrnition, 
What  we  have  j»ist  said — and  we  niij^ht  have  said  much  more — is  meant  as  a  n  tiiind- 
er  that  her  greatest  limiiations  are  not  of  human  ori;;in.  M«'U  did  not  make  thrm, 
and  they  can  not  unmake  them.  Through  them  God  and  Nature,  liave  ordained  that 
those  subject  to  them  shall  not  be  forced  to  join  in  the  harsh  conflicts  of  the  worhl 
militant.  Itis  folly  to  ignore  them,  or  try  to  counteract  them  by  political  and  social 
quackery.    They  set  at  naught  legislatures  and  peoples. 

SELF-COMPLACENCY  OF  THE  AGITATORS. 

Hero  we  may  notice  an  idea  which  seems  to  prevail  among  the  woman  stiffragists, 
that  they  have  argued  away  the  causes  which  have  always  determined  the  substan- 
tial relations  of  the  sexes.  This  notion  arises  mainly  from  the  fact  that  they  have 
had  the  debate  very  much  to  themselves.  Their  case  is  that  of  tlu^  self-mad*^  philos- 
opher who  attacked  the  theory  of  gravitation,  and,  because  nobody  took  the  trouble 
to  answer  him,  boasted  that  he  had  demolished  it,  and  called  it  au  error  of  the  past. 

CRUELTY  OF  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

The  frequent  low  state  of  health  among  American  women  is  a  fact  as  undeniable  as 
it  is  deplorable. 

In  this  condition  of  things,  what  do  certain  women  demand  for  the  good  of  their 
sex?  To  add  to  the  excitements  that  are  wasting  them  other  and  greater  excite- 
ments, and  to  cares  too  much  for  their  strength  other  and  greater  cares.  Because 
they  can  not  do  their  own  work,  to  require  them  to  add  to  it  the  work  of  men,  and 
launch  them  into  the  turmoil  where  the  most  robust  sometimes  fail.  It  is  much  as  if 
a  man  in  a  state  of  nervous  exhaustion  were  told  by  his  physician  to  enter  at  ouco 
for  a  foot-race  or  a  boxing-match. 

POWER  SHOULD  GO  WITH  RESPONSIBILITY. 

To  hold  the  man  responsible  and  yet  deprive  him  of  power  is  neither  just  nor 
rational.  The  man  is  the  natural  head  of  the  family,  and  is  responsible  for  its  main- 
tenance and  order.  Hence  he  ought  to  control  the  social  and  business  agencies  which 
are  essential  to  the  successful  (lischarge  of  the  trust  imposed  upon  him.  If  he  is 
deprived  of  any  part  of  this  control,  he  should  be  freed  also  in  the  same  measure  from 
the  responsibilities  attached  to  it. 

ALTERNATIVES  OF  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

Woman  suffrage  must  have  one  of  tw^o  effects.  If,  as  many  of  its  advocates  com- 
plain, women  are  subservient  to  men,  and  do  nothing  but  what  they  desire,  then  woman 
snlfrage  will  have  no  other  result  than  to  increase  the  power  of  the  other  sex  ;  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  women  vote  as  they  see  tit,  without  regarding  their  husbands,  then 
unhapi)y  marriages  will  be  multiplied  and  divorces  redoubled.  We  can  not  allord  to 
add  to  the  elements  of  domestic  unhappiness. 

POLITICAL  DANGERS  OF  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

One  of  the  chief  dangers  of  popular  government  is  that  of  inconsiderate  and  rash 
legislation.  In  impatience  to  l)e  rid  of  one  evil,  ulterior  conse«iuences  are  apt  to  bo 
forgotten.  In  the  haste  to  redress  one  wrong,  a  door  may  be  opened  to  many.  This 
danger  would  be  increased  innuj'asurably  if  the  most  inipulsive  ami  »»\('iteai>le  liall  of 
humanity  had  an  e<iual  voice  in  the  making  of  laws,  ami  in  the  adnunistration  oftlu  in. 
Abstract  right  would  then  be  madi^  to  i)revail  after  a  fashion  somewhat  startling.  A 
lady  of  int«^lligence  an<i  admirabh'  intentions,  an  ardent  partisan  on  jtrinciples  of  pnre 
hnii  anitananism,  confessed  that,  in  the  last  Presidential  election.  Florida  had  given 
a  majority  for  the  Democrats;  but  insisted  that  it  was  right  to  count  it  for  Hayes, 
because  other  States  had  been  counted  wrongfully  for  Tilden.  It  was  impt».s.sible  to 
make  her  comprehend  that  government  conducted  on  such  principles  would  end  in 
anarchy.  In  politics,  the  virtues  of  women  would  sometimes  be  as  dangerous  as  their 
faults. 

If  the  better  class  of  women  flatter  themselves  that  they  can  control  the  of  hen<, 
tin  y  are  doomed  to  disappointment.    They  will  be  outvotocl  in  their  own  kitchens, 
without  reckoning  the  agglomerations  of  poverty,  ignorance,  and  vice,  that  form  % 
S.  Rep.  1  at 


24 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


startling  proportion  of  our  city  populations.  It  is  here  that  the  male  vote  alone 
threatens  our  system  with  its  darkest  perils.  The  female  vote  would  enormously  in- 
crease the  evil,  for  it  is  often  more  numerous,  always  more  impulsive  and  less  sub- 
ject to  reason,  and  almost  devoid  of  the  sense  of  responsibility.  Here  the  bad  politi- 
cian would  lind  liis  richest  resources.  He  could  not  reach  the  better  class  of  female 
voters,  but  the  rest  would  be  ready  to  his  hand.  Three-fourths  of  them,  wheu  not 
urged  by  some  pressing  need  or  contagious  passion,  would  be  moved,  not  by  princi- 
ples, but  by  personal  predilections. 

THE  FEMALE  POLITICIAN. 

It  is  not  woman's  virtues  that  would  be  prominent  or  influential  in  the  political  arena. 
They  would  shun  it  by  an  invincible  repulsion  ;  and  the  opposite  qualities  would  bo 
drawn  into  it.  The  Washington  lobby  has  given  us  some  means  of  judgiug  what  wo 
mny  expect  from  the  woman  'inside  politics."  If  politics  are  to  be  purilied  by  art- 
fulness, effrontery,  insensibility,  a  pushing  self-assertion,  and  a  glib  tongue,  theu  we 
may  look  for  regeneration;  for  the  typical  female  politician  will  be  richly  endowed 
with  all  these  gifts. 

Thus  accoutered  for  the  conflict,  she  may  fairly  hope  to  have  the  better  of  her  mas- 
culine antagonist.  A  woman  has  the  inalienable  right  of  attacking  without  being 
attacked  in  turn.  She  may  strike,  but  must  not  be  struck,  either  literally  or  figura- 
tively. Most  women' refrain  from  abusing  their  privilege  of  non-combatants;  but 
there  are  those  in  whom  the  sense  of  impunity  breeds  the  cowardly  courage  of  the 
virago. 

In  reckoning  the  resources  of  the  female  politicians  there  is  one  which  can  by  no 
means  be  left  out.  None  know  better  than  women  the  potency  of  feminine  charms 
aided  by  feminine  arts.  The  woman  "inside  politics"  will  not  fail  to  make  use  of  an 
influence  so  subtle  and  strong,  and  of  which  the  management  is  peculiarly  suited  to 
her  talents.  If — and  the  contingency  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable — she  is  not 
gifted  with  charms  of  her  own,  she  will  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  and  using  others 
of  her  sex  who  are.  If  report  is  to  be  trusted,  Delilah  has  already  spread  her  snares 
for  the  Congressional  Samson ;  and  the  power  before  which  the  wise  fail  and  the 
mighty  fall  has  been  invoked  against  the  sages  and  heroes  of  the  Capitol.  When 
"woman"  is  fairly  "inside  politics,"  the  sensation  iiress  will  reap  a  harvest  of  scandals 
more  lucrative  to  itself  than  profitable  to  public  morals.  And,  as  the  zeal  of  one  class 
of  female  reformers  has  been,  and  no  doubt  will  be,  largely  directed  tp  their  griev- 
ances in  matters  of  sex,  we  shall  have  shrill-tongued  discussions  of  subjects  which 
had  far  better  be  let  alone. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  advocates  of  female  suffrage  do  not  look  to  political  women 
for  tbe  purifying  of  politics,  but  to  the  votes  of  the  sex  at  large.  The  two,  however, 
can  not  be  separated.  It  should  be  remembered  that  the  question  is  not  of  a  limited 
and  select  female  suffrage,  but  of  a  universal  one.  To  limit  would  be  impossible.  It 
would  seek  the  broadest  areas  and  the  lowest  depths,  and  spread  itself  through  the 
marshes  and  malarious  pools  of  society. 

MEN  WILL  GIVE  WOMEN  THE  SUFI  RAGE  IF  THEY  WANT  IT. 

Again,  one  of  the  chief  arguments  of  the  agitators  is  that  government  without  the 
consent  of  the  governed  is  opposed  to  inalienable  right.  But  most  women,  including 
those  of  the  best  capacity  and  worth,  fully  consent  that  their  fathers,  husbands, 
brothers,  or  friends  shall  be  their  political  representatives;  and  no_ exhortation  or 
teasing  has  induced  them  to  withhold  their  consent.  Nor  is  this  surprising;  for  a 
woman  is  generally  represented  in  a  far  truer  and  more  intimate  sense  by  her  male 
relative  than  is  this  relative  by  the  candidate  to  whom  he  gives  his  vote,  commonly 
w^ithout  knowing  him,  and  often  with  disseut  from  many  of  his  views. 

Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  women  will  have  the  suffrage  if  they  ever  want 
it;  for  when  they  want  it,  men  will  give  it  to  them,  regardless  of  consequences.  A 
more  than  readines<4  on  the  part  of  men  to  conform  to  the  wishes  of  the  other  sex  is 
a  national  trait  in  America,  though  whether  it  would  survive  the  advent  of  the  fe- 
male politician  is  matter  for  reflection.  We  venture  to  remind  those  who  demand 
woman  suflVage  as  a  right  that,  even  if  it  were  so,  the  great  majority  of  intelligent 
women  could  judge  for  themselves  whether  to  exercise  it,  better  than  the  few  who 
assume  to  teach  them  their  duty. 

MOST  WOMEN  AVERSE  TO  IT. 

The  agitators  know  well  that,  in  spite  of  their  persistent  importunity,  the  majority 
of  women  are  averse  to  the  suftVagc.  Hence,  the  ludicrous  terror  which  the  suffragists 
showed  at  the  governor's  proposal  to  submit  the  question  to  a  vote  of  the  women  of 
the  State. 


WOMAN  SUFFKAGE. 


25 


THE  WOMAN  SUFFRAGISTS    HAVE   DONE  NOTHING    TO  I'ltOVE  THEIR  FITNESS  FOR  A 

SHARE  IN  (U)VERNMENT. 

A  jsiuall  miniber  of  women  Juive  spent  their  time  for  Kcveral  decadeH  in  ceuHolesH  de- 
mands I'or  siilirajje,  but  t  hey  liavc  lost  tlieir  best  arj^iiment  in  failin;^  to  hhow  tliat 
-  they  are  prepared  to  use  the  Iraiichise  when  they  hav<<  ^ot  it.  A  Hin;;le  hoimhI  and 
useful  contribution  to  one  Hide  or  the  other  of  any  qiu'stion  of  <  urrenl  politicH— the 
tarilV,  specie  i)aynient8,  the  silver  bill,  civil  service  reform,  railroa<l  mono[)oly,  cai»ital 
and  labor,  or  a  half  score  of  other  matters — would  have  done  more  for  their  cause 
than  years  of  empty  agitation. 

PERMANENCE  OF  THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  SEXES. 

The  a<:;itators  say  that  no  reason  can  be  given  why  women  should  not  take  a  direct 
part  in  i»oli^ic8,  except  that  they  have  never  done  so.  There  are  other  reasons,  and 
strong  ones,  in  abundiince.    Jiut  this  particular  one  is  nevertheless  good. 

All  usages,  laws,  and  institutions  have  risen  and  ])erished,  and  risen  and  perished 
again.  Their  history  is  the  history  of  mntability  itself.  But,  from  the  earliest  rec- 
ords of  mankind  down  to  this  moment,  in  every  race  and  every  form  or  degree  of 
civilization  or  barbarism,  the  relative  position  of  the  sexes  has  been  essentially  the 
same,  with  exceptions  so  feeble,  rare,  and  transient  that  they  only  prove  the  rule. 
Such  permanence  in  the  foundation  of  society,  while  all  that  rests  upon  it  has  ]>assed 
from  change  to  change,  is  proof  in  itself  that  this  foundation  lies  deep  in  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  things.  It  is  idle  to  prate  of  the  old  time  that  has  passed  away  and 
the  new  time  that  is  coming.  The  "new  time"  can  no  more  stir  the  basis  of  hu- 
man nature  than  it  can  stop  the  movement  of  the  earth. 

The  cause  of  this  i)ermaneuce  is  obvious.  Women  have  great  special  tasks  assigned 
them  in  the  work  of  life,  and  men  have  not.  To  these  tasks  their  whole  nature,  moral 
and  physical,  is  adjusted.  There  is  scarcely  a  distinctive  quality  of  women  that  has 
not  a  direct  or  indirect  bearing  upon  them.  Everythingelse  in  their  existence  is  sub- 
ordinated to  the  indispensable  functions  of  continuing  and  rearing  the  human  race  ; 
and,  during  the  best  years  of  life,  this  work,  fully  discharged,  leaves  little  room  for 
any  other.  Rightly  considered,  it  is  a  work  no  less  dignified  than  essential.  It  is 
the  root  and  stem  of  national  existence,  whihi  the  occupations  of  men  are  but  the 
leaves  and  branches.  On  women  of  the  intelligent  and  instructed  classes  depends  the 
future  of  the  nation.  If  they  are  sound  in  body  and  mind,  impart  this  soundness  to  a 
numerous  otispring,  ami  roar  them  to  a  sense  of  responsibility  and  duty,  there  are  no 
national  evils  that  we  can  not  overcome.  If  they  fail  to  do  this  their  part,  then  the  nkos- 
ses  of  ihe  coarse  and  unintelligent,  alwaysof  rapid  increase,  will  overwhelm  us  andour 
institutions.  When  tlie«e  iudisjiensable  duties  are  fully  discharged,  then  thesull'rage 
agitators  may  ask  with  better  grace,  if  not  with  more  reason,  that  they  may  share 
the  political  functions  of  men. 

IS  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE  A  RIGHT  OR  A  WRONG  ? 

It  has  been  claimed  as  a  right  that  woman  should  vote.  It  is  no  right,  but  a 
wrong  that  a  small  number  of  women  should  impose  on  all  the  rest  political  duties 
which  there  is  no  call  for  their  assuming,  which  they  do  not  want  to  assume,  and 
which,  if  duly  discharged,  would  be  a  cruel  and  intolerable  burden.  This  pretense 
of  the  female  sutiragists  was  reduced  to  an  absurdity  when  some  of  them  gravely 
aflirmed  that  if  a  single  woman  wanted  to  vote  all  the  others  ought  to  l)e  required 
to  do  so. 

(Jovernment  by  doctrines  of  abstract  right,  of  which  the  French  revolution  set' 
the  exam|)le  and  bore  tin;  Iruits,  involves  enormous  danger  and  injustie^^  No  politi- 
cal right  is  absolut*'  and  of  universal  ajtplicat ion.  Each  has  its  eonditions,  qualili- 
catioiis,  and  limitations.  If  these  are  disregarded,  om;  right  collides  with  another, 
or  with  many  others.  Even  aman'sright  toliberty  is  subject  to  the condit ion  that  ho 
does  not  use  it  to  infringe  the  rights  of  his  neighbors.  It  is  in  the  concrete,  and  not  in 
the  abstract,  that  rights  prevail  in  every  sound  ami  wholesome  society.  They  are  ap- 
plied where  they  are  applicable.  A  government  of  glittering  g«Mieralil  i«'s  (|uickly  de- 
stroys itself.  Tlie  object  of  government  is  the  aee«)mplishment  of  a  certain  result,  the 
greatest  good  of  the  governed  ;  and  the  ways  of  n'aching  it  vary  in  <lifVerent  conntries 
and  ditVerent  social  eomlitions.  Neither  liberty  nor  the  suffrage  an' tlie  eml ;  they  are 
nothing  but  means  to  reach  it  :  and  «'ach  should  hv  used  to  the  extent  in  which' it  is 
best  adapted  to  its  puri)ose.  If  the  voting  of  women  conduces  to  t  he  greatest  good  of 
the  eomiunnity  then  th«*y  ought  to  vote,  and  <)therwisethey  ought  not.  The  question 
of  female  sulVrage  thus  becomes  a  practical  «|uestion,  an<l  not  om«  of  deelamat ion. 

What  would  be  the  results  of  the  general  application  of  t he  s«) callrjl  right  \o  vote, 
a  right  which,  if  it  exists  at  all,  must  be  common  to  all  niankiud  ?    Suppose  that  the 


26 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


poi)nlations  of  Turkey,  the  Soudan,  or  Zululand,  were  to  attempt  to  exercise  it  and 
govern  themselves  by  universal  popular  suffrage. 

The  consequence  would  be  anarchy  and.  a  quick  return  to  despotism  as  a  relief. 
The  same  would  be  the  case,  in  less  degree,  among  peoples  more  civilized,  yet  not 
trained  to  self-governu  ent  by  the  habits  and  experience  of  generations.  In  fact, 
there  are  but  a  few  of  the  most  advanced  nations  in  whom  the  universal  exercise  of 
the  pretended  "inalienable  right"  to  vote  would  not  produce  political  and  social 
convulsions.  The  truth  is  this  :  If  the  exercise  of  the  suffrage  by  any  individual  or 
body  of  individuals  involves  detriment  to  the  whole  people,  then  the  right  to  exer- 
cise it  does  not  exist. 

It  is  the  right  and  the  duty  of  the  people  to  provide  itself  with  good  government, 
and  this  great  practical  right  and  duty  is  imperative  and  paramount;  whatever  con- 
fficts  with  it  must  give  way.  The  air-blown  theory  of  inalienable  right  is  unworthy 
the  good  sense  of  the  American  people. 

The  most  rational  even  of  the  suffragists  themselves  liave  ceased  to  rely  on  it. 

WOMAN  SUFFRAGE  NOT  PROGRESS. 

Many  women  of  sense  and  intelligence  are  influenced  by  the  fact  that  the  woman- 
suffrage  movement  boasts  itself  a  movement  of  progress,  and  by  a  wish  to  be  on  the 
liberal  or  progressive  side.  But  the  boast  is  unfounded.  Progress,  to  be  genuine, 
must  be  in  accord  with  natural  law.  If  it  is  not  it  ends  in  failure  and  in  retrogression. 
To  give  women  a  thorough  and  wholesome  training  both  of  body  and  mind  ;  to  pre- 
])are  such  of  them  as  have  strength  and  opportunity  for  various  occupatious  different 
from  what  they  usually  exercise,  and  above  all  for  the  practice  of  medicine,  iu  which 
wo  believe  that  they  may  render  valuable  service ;  to  rear  them  in  more  serious  views 
of  life  and  its  responsibilities  are  all  in  the  way  of  normal  and  healthy  development; 
but  to  plunge  them  into  politics,  where  they  are  not  needed  and  for  which  they  are 
unlit,  would  be  scarcely  more  a  movement  of  progress  than  to  force  them  to  bear  arms 
and  light. 

WOMAN  IN  POLITICS  AN  ANTIQUATED  IDEA. 

The  social  power  of  women  has  grown  with  the  growth  of  civilization^  but  their 
political  power  has  diminished.  In  former  times  and  under  low  social  conditions, 
women  have  occasionally  had  a  degree  of  power  in  public  affairs  unknown  iu  the 
loiemost  nations  of  the  modern  world.  The  most  savage  tribes  on  this  continent,  the 
Six  Nations  of  New  York,  listened  in  solemn  assembly  to  the  counsels  of  its  ma+roua 
wiih  a  deference  that  has  no  parallel  among  its  civilized  successors.  The  people  of 
iiiicient  Lycia,  at  a  time  when  they  were  semi-barbarians,  gave  such  power  to  their 
women  that  they  were  reported  to  live  under  a  gynecocracy,  or  female  government. 
The  word  gynecocracy,  by  the  way,  belongs  to  anti([uity.  It  has  no  ai)plicatiou  iu 
modein  life;  and,  in  the  past,  its  applications  were  found,  not  in  the  higher  develop- 
ments of  ancient  society,  but  in  the  lower.  Four  hundred  years  before  Christ  the 
question  of  giving  political  power  to  women  was  agitated  among  the  most  civilized 
of  ancient  people,  the  Atheniaus,  and  they  would  not  follow  the  examjile  of  their  bar- 
barian neighbors. 

THE  CONNECTION  BETWEEN  VOTING  AND  FIGHTING. 

The  advocates  of  woman  suff  rage  have  ridiculed  the  idea  of  any  connection  between 
voting  and  the  capacity  to  fight.  Their  attitude  in  this  matter  shows  the  absence  of 
reflection  on  questions  of  government,  or  the  inability  to  form  rational  judgment  upon 
them.    In  fact,  it  is  with  nearly  all  of  them  a  matter,  not  of  reason,  but  of  sentiment. 

The  hnman  race  consists  of  two  equal  parts,  the  combatant  and  the  non-combatant, 
and  1  hese  parts  are  separated  by  the  line  of  sex.  It  is  true  that  some  men  are  perma- 
nently disabled  from  fighting,  and  others  may  be  disabled  iu  one  year  or  one  month, 
and  lit  to  bear  arms  in  the  next,  but  the  general  fact  remains  that  men  are  the  fighting 
li:ilf  of  humanity,  and  women  are  not.  Fundamental  laws  are  made  in  reference  to 
aujgregates  of  persons,  and  not  to  individual  exceptions ;  and  it  would  be  absurd  to 
exact  a  surgeon's  certificate  of  military  competency  from  every  voter  at  the  polls.  It 
is  enongh  that  he  belongs  to  a  body  which,  as  a  whole,  can  and  will  fight.  The  ques- 
tion remains,  wljat  has  this  to  do  with  voting  ?  It  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  it,  and 
above  all  iu  a  government  purely  popular. 

THE  VOTING  OF  A  LARGE  NON-COMBATANT   CLASS  DANGEROUS  TO  CIVIL  HARMONY. 

Since  histoiy  began,  no  government  ever  sustained  itself  long  unless  it  could  com- 
mand the  physical  force  of  the  natiou ;  and  this,  whether  the  form  of  governmeut  was 
despotism,  constitutional  monarchy,  or  democracy.    The  despot  controls  the  army 


WOMAN  SUFrRAOE. 


27 


which  compels  ihe  people  to  ohey ;  the  kin^  an<l  parliament  control  the  forc  j  of  tho 
kin<5(l()in,  ami  malcontonts  dare  not  rise  in  iiiMnneei ion  t ill  they  think  they  have 
drawn  away  an  eqnal  or  greater  share  of  it.  Finally,  the  majority  in  u  democratic 
lepublic  feels  secure  that  its  enactments  will  take  effect,  because  the  <lereate<l  mi- 
nority, even  if  it  does  not  respect  law,  will  respect  a  force  greater  than  its  own. 
But  suppose  tho  majority  to  consist  chietiy  of  women.  Then  legality  wcmhl  !»<•  on 
one  side  and  power  on  the  other.  The  majority  would  have  tin;  l.iv/,  ami  the  mi- 
nority the  courage  and  strength.  Hence,  in  times  of  political  cxcitcmctit,  when 
passions  were  roused  and  great  interests  were  at  stake,  the  majority,  that  is,  the 
legal  authority,  would  need  the  help  of  a  standing  army.  Without  such  support  tho 
possession  of  the  sutfrago  by  tho  non-coml)atant  half  of  the  nation  wouhl  gnatly 
increase  the  chances  of  civil  discord.  Once  in  our  history  a  minority  rose  against 
the  majority,  in  the  belief  that  it  could  out-light  it.  This  would  happen  often  if 
the  minority,  as  in  tho  supposed  case  of  woman  snlfrage,  had  not  only  the  belief, 
but  the  certainty,  that  it  could  master  the  majority.  It  may  not  bo  creditable  to 
human  nature  that  if  we  would  have  a  stable  government  it  is  nec(!SN.ny  to  Ucep  the 
balance  of  power  on  the  side  of  law  ;  but  tho  busint^ss  of  government  is  to  shape  itself 
to  the  actual,  and  not  tho  ideal  or  millennial,  condition  of  mankind. 

Suppose,  again,  a  foreiirn  war  in  which  tho  sympathies  of  our  women  were  enlisted 
on  one  side  or  tho  other.  Suppose  them  to  vote  against  the  judgment  of  Vhe  men  that 
we  should  take  part  in  it,  or,  in  other  words,  that  their  male  lellow-citizeus  should 
light  whether  they  liked  it  or  not.    Would  the  men  be  likely  to  obey  ? 

ANOTHER  SOURCE  OF  DISCORD. 

There  is  another  reason  why  the  giving  of  the  suffrage  to  wouien  would  tend  to 
civil  discord.  In  the  jioliticsof  the  future  th<i  predomiuant,  if  not  the  engrossing, 
questions  will  be  to  all  appearance  those  of  tinance  and  the  relat  ions  of  labor  and 
capital.  From  the  nature  of  their  occupations,  a>»  well  as  other  causes,  women  in  gen- 
eral are  ignorant  of  these  matters,  and  not  well  lilted  to  deal  with  them.  They  re- 
quire an  experience,  a  careful  attention,  a  deliberation  and  coolness  of  judgment, 
and  a  freedom  from  passion,  so  rare  that  at  the  best  their  political  treatment  is 
full  of  tlitticulty  and  danger.  If  these  qualities  are  rare  in  men,  they  are  still  more 
so  in  women,  and  feminine  instinct  will  not  in  the  present  case  supply  their  place. 
The  peculiar  danger  of  these  questions  is  that  they  raise  class  animosities,  and  tend 
to  set  tho  poor  against  the  rich  and  tho  rich  against  the  poor.  They  become  ques- 
tions of  social  antagonism.  Now,  most  of  us  have  had  occasion  to  observe  how  strong 
the  social  rivalries  an<l  animosities  of  women  are.  They  far  exceed  those  of  men.  If, 
in  the  strife  between  labor  and  capital,  which,  without  great  self-restraint  on  both 
sides,  is  likely  to  be  a  fierce  one,  women  should  be  called  to  an  active  ]»;ut,  the  etUct 
would  be  lik*' throwing  pitch  an<l  resin  into  the  tire.  Tho  wives  and  daughters  of 
tho  poor  would  bring  into  the  contest  a  wrathful  jealousy  and  hate  against  th«5  wives 
and  daughters  of  the  rich  far  more  vehement  than  the  corresponding  passions  in  their 
husbands  and  brothers. 

PRACTICAL  VERSUS  SENTIMENTAL  GOVERNMENT. 

The  real  issue  is  this:  Is  the  object  of  government  tho  good  of  tho  goveriUMl,  or  is  it 
not  ?  A  late  writer  on  woman  sullVage  says  that  it  is  not.  Aeconliug  to  her,  th««  ob- 
ject of  government  is  to  give  his  or  her  rights  to  everybody.  Others  among  the  agi- 
tators do  not  venture  either  on  this  Hat  denial  or  this  brave  assertion,  but  only  hover 
about  them  with  longing  looks.  Virtually  they  maintain  that  the  object  of  govern- 
ment is  the  realization  of  certain  ideas  or  theories.  They  believe  in  principles,  and 
80  do  we;  they  believe  in  rights,  and  so  do  we.  lint  as  tho  sublime  may  pass  into 
the  ridiculous,  so  the  best  principles  may  be  transported  into  regions  of  folly  or  iliab- 
olism.  There  are  minds  so  constituted  that  they  can  never  st«>p  till  they  have  run 
every  virtue  into  its  correlative  weakness  or  vice.  (Jovernmeut  should  be  guided  by 
])rinciples;  but  they  should  be  sane  and  not  crazy,  sober  and  not  drunk.  They  should 
walk  on  solid  ground,  and  not  roam  the  clouds  lianging  to  a  bag  of  gas. 

Rights  may  be  real  or  unreal.  Principles  may  be  true  or  false  ;  but  even  i1h«  ln-.st 
and  truest  can  not  safely  l)o  pushed  too  far,  or  in  tlu'  wrong «lireetion.  The  principle 
of  truth  itself  may  be  carried  into  absurdity.  The  saying  is  old  that  truth  should 
not  bespoken  at  all  times;  ami  those  whom  a  sick  conscience  worries  into  hal>itiial 
violation  of  the  maxim  are  imbeciles  and  nuisances.  Keligion  may  jiass  into  mo: bid 
enthusiasm  or  wild  fanaticisuj,  andtuin  from  a  blessing  to  a  curse.  So  the  best  of 
political  principles  must  be  kejit  within  bounds  of  reason,  or  tln\v  will  work  mis- 
chief. That  greatest  and  most  diflicult  of  sciences,  the  science  of  government,  deal- 
ing with  interests  so  delicate,  complicated,  and  autagouietic,  becomes  a  perilous 
guide  when  it  deserts  the  ways  of  temperance. 


28 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


SHALL  WE  STAND  BY  AMERICAN  PRINCIPLES? 

The  suffragists'  idea  of  government  is  not  practical,  but  utterly  unpractical.  It  is 
not  American,  but  French.  It  is  that  government  of  abstractions  and  generalities 
which  found  its  realization  in  the  French  revolution,  and  its  apostle  in  the  depraved 
and  half-crazy  man  of  genius,  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau.  The  French  had  an  excuse 
for  their  frenzy  in  ihc  crushing  oppression  they  had  just  flung  off  and  in  their  inex- 
perience of  freedom.  We  have  no  excuse.  Since  the  nation  began  we  have  been  free, 
and  our  liberty  is  in  danger  from  nothing  but  its  own  excesses.  Since  France  learned 
to  subject  the  ideas  of  Rousseau  to  the  principles  of  stable  freedom  embodied  in  Ihe 
parliamentary  government  of  England  and  in  our  own  republicanism,  she  has  emerged 
from  alternate  tumult  and  despotism  lo  enter  the  paths  of  hope  and  progress. 

The  government  of  abstra(;tions  has  been  called  sonietimes  the  a  priori,  and  sometimes 
the  sentimental,  method.  We  object  lo  this  last  term,  unless  it  is  carefully  defined. 
Sentiments,  like  principles,  enter  into  the  life  of  nations  as  well  as  that  of  indivduals; 
and  lliey  mo  vital  to  both.  But  they  should  be  healthy,  and  not  morbid;  rational, 
and  not  extravagant.  It  is  noL  common  sense  alone  that  makes  the  greatness  of  states  ; 
neither  is  it  sentiments  and  principles  alone.  It  is  these  last  joined  with  reason,  re- 
flection, and  moderation.  Through  this  union  it  is  that  one  small  island  has  become 
the  mighty  mother  of  nations;  and  it  is  because  we  ourselves,  her  greatest  offspring, 
have  chosen  the  paths  of  Hami)deii,  Washington,  and  Franklin,  and  not  those  of 
Rousseau,  that  we  have  passed  safe  through  every  danger,  and  become  the  wonder  and 
despair  of  despotism. 

Out  of  the  wholesome  fruits  of  the  earth,  and  the  staff  of  life  itself,  the  perverse 
chemistry  of  man  distills  delirious  vapors,  which,  condensed  and  bottled,  exalt  his 
brain  with  gl(»rions  fantasies,  and  then  leave  him  inthemnd.  So  it  is  with  the  un- 
happy sufFr.'igisis.  From  the  sober  words  of  our  ancestors  they  extract  the  means  of 
mental  inebriety.  liecause  the  fathers  of  the  Republic  gave  certain  reasons  to  em- 
phasize their  crerd  that  America  should  not  be  taxed  because  America  was  not  repre- 
sented in  the  lii  itish  rarlianient,  they  cry  out  that  we  must  fling  open  the  flood  gates 
to  vaster  tides  of  ignorance  and  lolly,  strengthen  the  evil  of  our  system  and  weaken 
the  good,  feed  old  abuses,  hatch  now  ones,  and  expose  all  our  large  cities— we  speak 
with  deliberate  conviction — to  the  lisk  of  anarch5\ 

Neither  Congress,  nor  the  States,  nor  the  united  voice  of  the  whole  people  could 
permanently  change  the  essential  relations  of  the  sexes.  Universal  female suilrage, 
even  if  deciced,  would  undo  itself  in  time;  but  the  attempt  to  establish  it  would  work 
deplorable  mischief.  'J'ue  (jnestion  is,  whether  Ihe  persistency  of  a  few  agitators 
shiill  plunge  us  blindfold  into  the  most  reckless  of  all  experiments;  whether  we  shall 
adopt  this  supremo  device. for  developing  the  defects  of  women,  and  demolish  their 
ri  ai  power  to  build  an  uglj^  mockery  instead.  For  the  sake  of  womanhood,  let  us 
hope  not.  In  spite  of  the  effect  on  the  popular  mind  of  the  incessant  repetition  of  a 
few  trite  falacies,  and  in  spite  of  the  squeamishness  that  prevents  the  vast  majority 
averse  to  the  movement  from  uttering  a  word  against  it,  let  us  trust  that  the  good 
sense  of  the  American  people  will  vindicate  itself  against  this  most  unnatural  and  pes- 
tilent revolution.  In  the  full  and  normal  development  of  womanhood  lie  the  best  in- 
terests of  the  world.  Let  us  labor  earnestly  for  it ;  and,  that  we  may  not  labor  in 
vain,  let  us  save  women  from  the  barren  perturbations  of  deliverance  politics.  Let 
us  respect  them;  and,  that  we  may  do  so,  let  us  pray  for  American  from  female  suf- 
frage. 

The  minority  also  desire  to  submit  the  report  of  the  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee of  the  House  iu  the  Forty-eighth  Congress,  as  follows: 

fHoiise  Report  No.  133).   Forty-eightli  Congress,  first  session.] 

The  right  of  suffrage  is  not  and  never  has,  under  our  system  of  government,  been 
one  of  the  essential  rights  of  citizenship.  Like  other  rights,  whether  founded  in  nat- 
ural law  or  not,  the  right  to  vote  has  always  been  treated  in  the  practice  of  civilized 
nations  as  a  strictly  civil  right,  purely  derivative  from  and  regulated  by  each  society 
according  to  its  own  circumstances  and  interests.  Certain  classes,  which  will  readily 
occur  to  the  mind,  have  been  almost  universally  excluded  from  the  privilege. 

The  Constitution  of  our  Federal  Union  did  not  assume  to  interfere  with  the  established 
rule  of  local  rights  and  class  cxcliisiou.  By  the  original  Constitution  of  178;)  the  whole 
organism  of  each  body-politic  participating  in  federation,  and  which,  as  a  colony  or 
State,  formed  one  of  the  constituents  of  the  Union,  was  le:  t  to  itself.  What  class  or 
portion  of  the  whole  people  of  any  State  should  be  admitted  to  suffrage,  and  should,  by 
virtue  of  such  admission,  exert  the  active  and  potential  control  iu  the  direction  of  its 
affairs,  was  a  question  reserved  exclusively  for  the  determination  of  the  State.  There 
was  no  limitation  placed  upon  the  power  of  the  State  except  what  may  bo  inferred  from 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


29 


the  constitutional  reqniremont  that  ih^^  United  States  shonhl  gnaranty  to  eao]>  State  a 
republican  form  of  Government.  11  hH.s  never  been  Herionwly  insiNtcd  ui)on  tliat  thlH 
guaranty  involved  the  power  to  refjjnhitii  sntrrajje.  It  fonneil  States  with  a  r«  piihli- 
can  form  of  ji^overnmcnt  whicli  denied  civil  a«  well  aw  political  ri^^htH  to  a  lar^c  m;i.sn 
of  its  population.  It  formed  States  wherein  the  mass  of  its  people  were  held  in  bond- 
age as  ♦slaves.  The  guaranty  of  a  rei)ublican  form  of  Government  to  each  Sfcat»5  did 
not  require  the  United  States  to  elevate  slaves  to  a  condition  of  freedom,  or  conf«5r 
upon  them  the  condition  of  suffrage.  This  principle  of  indei)endence  prevailed  not 
alone  as  to  State  governments,  but  oven  as  to  sutTrage  when  exercised  in  the  election 
of  Kepresewtatives  in  Congress. 

It  is  claimed  that  there  is  a  very  close  analogy  existing  between  thejjresent  condi- 
tion of  women  denied  the  political  privilege  of  sntfrage  and  that  of  the  former  slaves, 
and  that  the  same  reasons  w^hich  operated  to  induce  the  adoption  of  the  aujendments 
placing  a  limit  on  the  originally  exclusive  right  of  each  State  to  regulate  sullrage, 
should  be  made  to  apply  to  what  is  commonly  known  and  called  wonuin  sullrage. 
Indeed,  the  expressed  object  of  the  proposed  amendment  is  to  further  limit  the  ])ow('rH 
of  the  State  in  the  premises  by  forbidding  that  sex  should  be  a  bar  to  the  exercise  of 
su  lit  rage. 

That  the  analogy  claimed  exists,  and  that  like  reasons  suppoit  the  proposed  amend- 
ment as  were  successfully  urged  in  the  case  of  the  slave,  your  committee  deny. 
When  the  thirteenth  amendment  ^aa  adopted  by  the  States,  declaring  slavery  at  an 
end,  an  act,  not  of  the  United  States,  but  of  the  several  States  ratifying  the  same, 
under  the  terms  of  the  Constitution,  a  new  condition  of  things  arose,  for  which  the 
States  provided  new  amendments.  The  civil  rights  of  the  newly-emancipated  race 
were  secured  by  the  fourteenth  amendment,  prescribing  limits  to  State  power,  and 
the  two  races,  which  had  hitherto  stood  on  unequal  grounds  under  and  before  the 
law,  were  placed  upon  a  plane  of  civil  equality.  All  civil  rights  and  privileges  ac- 
corded to  one  were  thus  guarantied  to  both  races. 

Under  the  inlluence  of  a  just  fear  that  without  suffrage  as  a  protective  power  to 
the  newly-acquired  rights  and  privileges  guarantied  to  the  former  slave  he  might 
sufier  detriment,  and  with  this  dominant  motive  in  view,  originated  the  fifteenth 
amendment.  It  will  be  noted  that  by  this  latter  amendment  the  privilege  of  suffrage 
is  not  sought  to  be  conferred  on  any  class  ;  but  an  inhibition  is  placed  upon  the  States 
from  excluding  from  the  privilege  of  suffrage  any  class  on  account  of  race,  color,  or 
previous  condition  of  servitude.  Other  limitations  not  trespassing  upon  these  inhibi- 
tions might  and  do  continue  to  exist  in  all  the  States.  The  dangers  apprehended  and 
guarded  against  by  constitutional  enactments  at  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the 
amendments  cited  are  embraced  in  the  history  of  our  day,  and  are  beyond  the  pale 
of  doubt  or  dispute.  Two  heterogeneous  races,  wholly  separated  in  social  jiosition  by 
previous  historic  relations,  and  without  kindred  sympathies,  \vould  naturally  ho  so 
antagonized  in  interest  that  power  committed  exclusively  to  the  hands  of  one  might 
be  abused  to  the  Injury  of  the  other.  In  order,  therefore,  that  each  might  be  self-pro- 
tected, power  was  given  to  both. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  history  of  the  later  constitutional  amendments,  the  motives 
and  circumstances  which  compassed  their  origin,  and  the  theory  upon  which  they 
rest.  The  condition  of  slavery,  alleged  as  existing  in  the  case  of  woman,  is  wholly 
without  foundation  in  fact,  unless  the  condition  which  nature  assigns  her  is  to  be  so 
construed  and  considered.  Her  functions  in  civil  society  are  co-ordinate  with  those 
of  man,  differing  in  their  sphere  of  action,  but  not  antagonistic.  Woman  is  not  the 
slave,  but  the  companion,  of  man.  Her  duties  are  as  noble  as  his,  though  widely 
differing.  Her  true  sphere  is  not  restricted,  but  is  boundless  in  resources  and  con- 
sequences. In  it  she  may  emi)loy  every  energy  of  the  mind  and  every  affection  of 
the  heart,  while  within  its  limitless  compass,  under  Providence,  she  exercises  a  jxiwer 
and  influence  beyond  all  other  agencies  for  good.  She  trains  and  guides  the  life  that 
is,  and  forms  it  for  the  eternity  and  immortality  that  are  to  be.  From  the  rude  con- 
tact of  life,  man  is  her  shield.  He  is  her  guardian  from  itsconllicts.  He  is  the  defendt^r 
of  her  rights  in  his  home,  and  the  avenger  of  her  wrongs  everywhere.  In  the  shadow 
of  this  defense  not  only  is  she  shielded  and  protected,  but  in  it  man  himself  is  per- 
mitted to  play  his  most  exalted  i)art  in  the  social  economy. 

The  Christian  system  conserves  the  peace  and  harmony  of  their  home  and  invests 
with  sacred  solemnity  their  njlations  of  man  and  wife.  To  the  husband,  by  natural 
allotment  in  such  a  home,  fall  the  duties  which  i)rotect  and  ])rovidi^  for  tlu'  house- 
hold, and  to  the  wife  the  more  quiet  awdsecluded  but  no  less  exalted  duties  of  M»otln>r 
to  their  children  and  mistress  of  the  domicile.  To  permit  the  entrance  of  juditical 
contention  into  such  a  home  would  be  either  useless  or  pernicious — useh'ss  if  man  and 
wife  agree,  and  pernicious  if  they  diller.  In  the  foruu>r  event  the  volunu^  of  ballots 
alone  would  be  increased  without  changing  results.  In  the  latter  the  ]>eace  and  con- 
tentnu'ut  of  home  would  bc^  exchanged  for  the  bedlam  of  political  debate  and  liecome 
the  scene  of  base  and  demoralizing  intrigue.  The  »ixceptional  cases  of  unmarrie<l 
females  are  too  rare  to  change  the  general  policy,  while  expectancy  and  Uoi»e,  con- 


30 


WOMAN  SUFFRAQE. 


stantly  being  realized  in  marriage,  are  Lappily  extiDgnishiDg  the  exceptions  saxA 

bringing  all  within  the  rule  which  governs  wife  and  matron. 

In  respect  to  married  women,  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the  influences  which 
result  from  the  laws  of  property  between  man  and  wife  would  not  make  it  improba- 
ble that  the  woman  should  exercise  her  suffrage  with  freedom  and  independence. 
This,  too,  in  despite  of  the  fact  that  the  dependence  of  woman  under  the  common  law 
has  been  almost  entirely  obliterated  by  statutory  enactments.  At  all  events,  the 
power  proposed  to  pass  laws  to  carry  woman  suffrage  into  effect  would  be  held  to  give 
Congress  the  power  to  intrude  upon  the  marital  relations  in  the  States  and  the  rights 
of  property  incident  thereto,  and  as  to  which  your  committee  see  great  objection.  In 
answer  to  the  question  often  suggested  as  to  what  proportion  and  what  class  of  women 
would  avail  themselves  of  the  privilege  of  suffrage  if  extended  to  women,  your  com- 
mittee are  of  the  opinion  that  while  a  few  intelligent  women,  such  as  appeared  be- 
fore the  committee  in  advocacy  of  the  pending  measure,  would  defy  all  obstacles  in 
the  way  of  their  casting  the  ballot,  yet  the  great  mass  of  the  intelligent,  refined,  and 
judicious,  with  the  becoming  modesty  of  their  sex,  would  shrink  from  the  rude  con- 
tact of  the  crowd,  and,  with  the  exceptions  mentioned,  leaving  the  ignorant  and  vile 
the  exclusive  rig  lit  to  speak  for  the  gentler  sex  in  public  affairs. 

Your  committee  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  general  policy  of  female  suffrage  should 
remain  in  abeyance,  in  so  far  as  the  General  Government  is  concerned,  until  the  States 
and  communities  directly  chargeable  under  our  system  of  government  with  the  ex- 
ercise and  regulation  of  this  privilege  shall  put  the  seal  of  affirmation  upon  it ;  and 
there  certainly  can  be  no  reason  for  the  amendment  of  the  Constitution  to  settle  a 
question  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  States,  and  which  they  should  first  settle  for 
themselves.  Your  committee  are  not  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  on  a  submission  of 
the  question  of  extended  suffrage  in  several  of  the  States,  a  negative  answer  has  been 
returned  by  the  people  thereof.  In  the  opinion  of  your  committee,  and  in  view  of  the 
difficulties  in  repairing  an  error  once  fixed  upon  the  fundamental  law,  great  caution 
is  the  highest  wisdom  in  amending  the  Constitution.  Such  amendment  should  par- 
take of  the  character  imparted  to  the  instrument  itself,  which  is  a  thing  of  growth, 
not  the  origin  of  rights  and  principles,  but  sanctifying  and  confirming  great  and  ac- 
cepted principles  of  government  of  prior  existence  to  itself. 

Your  committee  do  not  find  the  principle  of  female  suffrage  so  universally  accepted 
as  that  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  is  demanded  to  declare  and  confirm  its  ex- 
istence. We  therefore  recommend  that  the  joint  resolution  for  the  submission  of  a 
sixteenth  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  as  proposed,  be  not  adopted. 

VIEWS  OF  MR.  POLAND. 

The  undersigned  concurs  with  the  majority  of  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  in 
recommending  that  it  is  inexpedient  to  submit  to  the  States  a  consrtitutioual  amend- 
ment for  the  establishment  of  woman  sufiYage.  I  concur  generally  in  the  argument 
of  the  report  by  which  that  conclusion  is  sujiported,  but  the  report  does  not  state  my 
individual  views  of  the  question  fully  and  exactly,  and  I  therefore  desire  to  add  a 
short  statement  of  them.  No  Government  founded  upon  the  principle  that  sover- 
eignty resides  in  the  people  has  ever  allowed  all  the  people  to  vote,  or  to  directly 
participate  in  the  making  or  administering  the  laws.  Suffrage  has  never  been  re- 
garded as  the  natural  right  of  all  the  peop'e,  or  of  any  particular  class  or  portion  of 
the  people.  Suffrage  is  representation,  and  it  has  been  given  in  free  governments  to 
such  class  of  persons  as  in  their  judgment  would  fairly  and  safely  represent  the  rights 
and  iuterests  of  the  whole. 

The  right  has  generally,  if  not  universally,  been  conferred  on.men  above  twenty -one 
years  of  age,  and  often  this  has  been  restricted  by  requiring  the  ownership  of  prop- 
erty or  the  payment  of  taxes. 

The  great  majority  of  women  are  either  under  the  age  of  twenty-one  or  are  married, 
and  therefore  under  such  influence  and  control  as  that  relation  implies  and  confers. 

Is  there  any  necessity  for  the  protection  and  preservation  of  the  rights  of  women 
that  they  be  allowed  to  vote,  and,  of  course,  to  hold  office  and  directly  to  participate 
in  legislation  and  in  the  administration  of  the  laws? 

Nearly  every  man  who  votes  has  a  wife,  or  mother,  or  sisters,  or  daughters  ;  some 
sustain  all  these  relations,  or  more  than  one. 

Now,  I  think  it  certain  that  the  great  majority  of  men,  when  voting  or  when  en- 
gaged as  legislators,  or  in  administering  the  laws  in  some  official  character,  or  as 
fully  mindful  of  the  interests  of  all  that  class  with  whom  they  are  so  closely  connected, 
and  whose  interests  are  so  bound  up  with  their  own,  and  that,  therefore,  they  fairly 
represent  all  the  rights  and  interests  of  women  as  well  as  their  own. 

Persons  who  have  been  accustomed  to  see  legal  proceedings  in  the  courts,  and  oc- 
casionally to  see  a  fetnale  litigant  in  court,  know  very  well  whether  they  are  apt  to 
sufter  wrong  because  their  rights  are  determined  wholly  by  men.    There  is  just  as 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


31 


littlo  reason  for  snspicion  that  their  rights  are  not  carefully  guarded  in  legiHlatinn, 
and  in  every  way  where  legislation  can  operate. 

There  is  another  reason  why  I  think  this  proposal  to  enlist  the  women  of  the  coun- 
try as  a  part  of  its  active  political  force,  and  cast  upon  them  an  efiual  duty  in  th(i  po- 
litical meetings,  campaigns,  and  elections— to  make  them  legislators,  jinors,  judges, 
and  executive  otlicers,  is  all  wroug.  I  holieve  it,  to  ho  utterly  inconnistont  with  the 
very  nature  aud  coustifut ion  of  woman,  and  wholly  subversive  ofilic  sphere  aud 
fuuction  she  was  designed  to  till  in  the  homo  and  in  society. 

The  othce  and  duty  which  nature  has  devolv(id  upon  woman  during  all  the  active 
aud  vigorous  portion  of  her  life  would  often  rentier  it  impossible,  aud  still  more  often 
indelicate,  for  her  to  iippear  and  act  in  caucuses,  conventions,  or  elections,  or  to  act 
as  a  member  of  a  legislature,  or  as  ajuror  or  judge. 

I  can  not  bring  myself  to  believe  that  any  largo  portion  of  the  intelligent  wouirn 
of  this  country  desire  any  such  thing  granted  them,  or  would  i)erform  any  such  du- 
ties if  the  chance  were  oifered  them. 

LuKi;  r.  Poland. 

In  the  Forty-fifth  Congress,  second  session,  Mr.  TVadleigb,  from  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Privileges  and  Elections,  made  the  following  re- 
port lor  that  committee  on  June  14,  1878,  to  wit: 

[Senate  Report  Xo.  523,  Forty-flfth  Congress,  second  session.] 

This  proposed  amendment  forbids  the  United  States  or  any  State  to  deny  or  abridge 
the  right  to  vote  on  account  of  sex. 

If  adopted,  it  will  make  several  millions  of  female  voters,  totally  inexperienced  in 
political  aiiairs,  quite  generally  dependent  upon  the  other  sex,  all  incapable  of  per- 
forming military  duty,  and  without  ihe  power  to  enforce  the  laws  which  their  nu- 
merical strength  may  enable  them  to  make,  and  comparatively  very  few  of  whom  wish 
to  assume  the  irksome  and  responsible  political  duties  which  this  measure  thrusts 
upon  them. 

An  experiment  so  novel,  a  change  so  great,  should  only  be  made  slowly  and  in  re- 
sponse to  a  general  public  demand,  of  the  existence  of  which  there  is  no  evidence  be- 
fore your  committee. 

Petitions  from  various  parts  of  the  country,  containing  by  estimate  about  30,000 
names,  have  been  presented  to  Congress  asking  for  this  legihlatiou. 

They  were  procured  through  the  efforts  of  woman-snlfrage  societies,  thoroughly  or- 
ganized, with  active  and  zealous  managers.  Tho  ease  with  which  signatures  n  ay 
bo  procured  to  any  i>etilion  is  well  known.  The  small  number  of  petitioners,  when 
compared  with  that  of  tho  iutelligeut  women  in  the  country,  is  striking  evidence 
that  there  exists  among  them  no  general  desire  to  take  up  the  heavy  burden  of  gov- 
eruing,  which  so  luauy  men  seek  to  evade. 

It  would  ho  unjust,  unwise,  and  impolitic  to  impose  that  burden  on  the  great  mass 
of  women  throughout  the  country  who  do  not  wish  for  it,  to  gratify  tho  compara- 
tively few  who  do. 

It  has  been  strongly  urged  that  without  the  right  of  sutFrage  women  are  and  will 
be  subjected  to  great,  oppression  and  injustice. 

But  every  oun  who  h.is  examined  tho  subject  at  all  knows  that  without  female  suf- 
frage legislation  for  years  has  iujpiovedaud  is  still  iuiproving  the  eomlition  of  woman. 
Tho  disabilities  imposed  upon  her  by  tho  common  law  have,  one  by  one,  been  swept 
away,  until  in  most  of  the  States  she  has  the  full  right  to  her  ])roperty  and  all,  or 
nearly  all,  the  rights  which  can  be  granted  without  impairing  or  <lestroying  tho  mar- 
riage relation.  These  changes  have  been  wrought  by  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  are 
not,  generally  at  least,  tho  result  of  any  agitation  by  women  in  their  own  behalf. 

Nor  can  women  justly  complain  of  any  i)artiality  in  the  a<lministrat i»)n  of  justice. 
They  bave  the  sympathy  of  judges  and  particularly  of  juries  to  an  extent  which 
would  warrant  loud  complaint  on  th<'  ])art  of  their  adversaries  of  the  stei-ner  sex. 
Their  ai)peals  to  U'gislatures  against  injustice  are  never  unheeded,  an<l  t here  is  no 
doubt  that  when  any  considerable  jiart  of  the  women  of  any  State  really  wish  f«>r  the 
right  to  vote  it  will  be  granted  without  the  intervention  of  Congress. 

Any  St.'ile  may  grant  the  right  of  sullVago  to  wouumi.  Some  of  them  have  done  s») 
to  a  limited  t^xti  iif,  and  perhaps  wit'u  goo<l  results.  It  is  evident  that  in  some  States 
public  opinion  is  much  nuue  strongly  in  favor  of  it  than  it  is  in  others.  Your  com- 
mittee regard  it  as  unwise  and  inexpe<lient  to  enable  thn'e-fourths  in  number  «)f  the 
States,  through  an  aniendment  to  tho  National  ('onstitntion,  to  forn^  woman  snllV.ig«' 
upon  the  other  lourih  in  whi(;h  the  public  opinion  of  both  sexes  may  l»e  strongly  ad- 
vei-se  to  such  a  change. 

For  these  reasons  your  committee  report  back  said  resolution,  with  a  recoiumenda- 
tion  that  it  bo  indetiuitely  postponed. 


32 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


The  minority  of  the  committee  also  submit  the  decision  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Virginia  Minor 
against  Happersett,  delivered  by  tbe  chief -justice  and  concurred  in 
by  all  the  justices  of  that  great  court,  in  October,  1874,  and  reported  in 
21  Wallace,  pages  165  to  178,  and  respectfully  submit  that  these  presenta- 
tions show  conclusively  that  the  claims  or  pretensions  of  the  woman 
suflragists  are  without  foundation,  and  that  they  have  the  same  remedy 
for  the  redress  of  wrongs  that  any  residents  or  citizens  of  their  respect- 
ive States  hav^e,  and  that  the  respective  States  have  the  perfect  right 
and  power  to  grant  the  right  to  vote  to  them  or  any  other  class  of  citi- 
zens, and  there  can  be  ro  reason  for  any  appeal  to  Congress  or  any 
action  by  Congress.  The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  above  referred 
to  is  hereto  appended. 

f.  m.  cockerill. 
Joseph  E.  Brown. 
Samuel  Pasco. 


OPINION. 

Tbo  chief-justice  delivered  the  opiuion  of  the  court. 

The  question  is  presented  in  this  case  whether,  since  the  adoption  of  the  fourteenth 
amendment,  a  woman,  who  is  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, is  a  voter  in  that^?tate,  notwithstanding  the  provision  of  the  constitution  and 
laws  of  the  State  which  confine  the  right  of  suffrage  to  men  alone.  Wo  might,  per- 
haps, decide  the  case  upon  other  grounds,  but  this  question  is  fairly  made.  From  the 
opiuion  wo  find  that  it  was  the  only  one  decided  in  the  court  below,  aud  it  is  the  only 
one  which  has  been  argued  here.  The  case  was  undoubtedly  brought  to  this  court 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  having  that  question  decided  by  us,  and  in  view  of  the  evident 
propriety  there  is  of  having  it  settled,  so  far  as  it  can  be  by  such  a  decision,  we  have 
concluded  to  waive  all  other  considerations  and  proceed  at  once  to  its  determination. 

It  is  contended  that  the  provisions  of  the  constitution  aud  laws  of  tho  State  of 
Missouri  which  confine  the  right  of  suffrage  and  registration  therefor  to  men  are  in 
violation  of  the  Coustitution  of  tho  United  States,  and  therefore  void.  The  argu- 
ment is,  that  as  a  woman,  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  Slates  and  subject  to 
the  jurisdiction  thereof,  is  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  and  of  tho  State  in  which 
she  resides,  she  has  the  right  of  suffrage  as  one  of  the  privileges  and  immunities  of 
her  citizenship,  which  the  State  can  not  by  its  laws  or  constitution  abridge. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  w^onien  may  be  citizens.  They  are  persons,  and  by  the 
fourteenth  ameudnjent  ''all  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States  aud 
subject  to  the  jurTsdiction  thereof  "are  expressly,  declared  to  be  ''citizens  of  the 
United  States  and  of  the  State  wherein  they  reside."  But,  in  our  opinion,  it  did  not 
need  this  amendment  to  give  them  that  position.  Before  its  adoption  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Uurted  States  did  not  in  terms  prescribe  who  should  be  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  or  of  tbe  several  States,  yet  there  were  necessarily  such  citizens  with- 
out such  provision.  There  can  not  be  a  nation  without  a  people.  Tho  very  idea  of 
apolitical  community,  such  as  a  nation,  implies  an  association  of  persons  for  their 
general  welfare.  Each  one  of  the  persons  associated  becomes  a  member  of  the  na- 
tions formed  by  the  association.  He  owes  it  allegiance  and  is  entitled  to  its  protec- 
tion. Allegiance  and  protection  are,  in  this  connection,  reciprocal  obligations.  The 
one  is  a  compensation  for  the  other;  allegiance  for  protection  and  protection  for 
allegiance. 

For  convenience  it  has  been  found  necessary  to  give  a  name  to  this  membership. 
The  object  is  to  designate  by  a  title  the  person  and  the  relation  he  bears  to  the  nation. 
For  this  purpose  the  words  "  subject,"  "  inhabitant,"  and  "citizen  "  have  been  used, 
and  the  choice  between  them  is  sometinies  made  to  depend  upon  the  form  of  the  gov- 
ernment. Citizen  is  now  more  commonly  employed,  however,  and  as  it  has  been  con- 
sidered better  suited  to  the  description  of  one  living  under  a  republican  government, 
it  was  adopted  by  nearly  all  of  the  States  upon  their  separation  from  Great  Britain, 
aud  was  afterwards  adopted  in  the  Articles  of  Confederation  and  in  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  When  used  in  this  sense  it  is  understood  as  conveying  the  idea 
of  membership  of  a  nation,  and  nothing  more. 

To  determine,  then,  who  were  citizens  of  the  United  States  before  the  adoption  of 
the  amendment  it  is  necessary  to  ascertain  what  persons  originally  associated  them- 
selves together  to  form  the  nation,  and  what  were  afterwards  admitted  to  member- 
ship, u 


AVOMAN  SUFFliAGK. 


Lookiiifi;  at  tho  Constitution  itself  we  find  that  it  was  ordninoil  :in<"l  OMtaMislicd  by 
*'tbo  poopli' of  tlic  Tiiitrd  States,"  :ni<l  tlit  ii  «;(»in;i  fnil lirr  Imck,  \\v  liiiil  lliat  llusn 
were  the  }>('oj)le  of  the  several  Stales  tliat  ha«l  helbm  dissol ve<l  the  ]M>lit:cal  1i;um1h 
which  connected  them  with  Great  Britain,  and  assuiiied  a  separate  and  e<inal  sfalion 
among  tho  ])owcrs  of  the  cartli,  and  that  had  by  Artiehsof  ConftMb  raf ion  ami  Ter- 
petual  Union,  in  wliirh  they  took  tho  nam(^  of  "  Ihe  I'Mihd  Slates  dl"  America,"  «'n- 
tered  into  a  lirm  lea;;ne  of  friendship  w.tli  each  other  f(ir  tlu'ir  common  <b  fense,  tlio 
secnrity  of  their  hfc'rtie  sand  tlx'ir  mntnal  and  j^eneral  w«'lfaie,  bindiiifr  themselv«iH 
to  assist  eaeli  other  against  all  force  ollt  rfd  to  or  attack  ma(b;  njuin  them,  ot  any  of 
them,  on  account  of  reli<::ion,  soverei^^nty,  trade,  or  any  other  pretense  \vhatev<^r. 

Whoever,  then,  was  oiieof  the  ople  of  either  of  these  Slates  wIumi  the  Constitti- 
tion  of  tho  United  States  was  adopted,  became  yj.so  Jaclo  a  i  itizen— a  member  of  tho 
naHon  created  by  its  adoption.  Ho  was  one  of  the  jx'isons  associating;  together  to 
form  the  nation,  and  was,  consequently,  one  of  its  orii;irial  citi/ens.  As  to  this  there 
has  never  be«Mi  a  doubt.  Disputes  have  arisen  as  to  wliether  or  not  certain  ])e:sonH  or 
certain  classes  of  persons  were  part  of  the  ^leople  at  the  time,  but  never  as  to  th<  ir 
citizenship  if  they  were. 

Additions  might  always  be  made  to  the  citizenship  of  tho  United  States  in  two 
■ways:  First,  by  birth,  and  second  by  naturalization.  This  is  api)arent  from  the  Con- 
stitution itself,  for  it  provides  that  *'no  peisfui  exeept  a  natuial-born  citizc  n,  or  a 
citizen  of  the  Unit(!d  States  at  the  the  time  of  the  ado[)t  ion  of  tlu;  Coiistitut  ion,  shall  b<5 
elii;ible  to  the  olhce  of  President,"  and  that  Congress  shall  have  ]M)wer  "  to  estal)l:.«>h 
a  iinilbrm  rule  of  naturalization."  Thus  new  citizens  may  bo  born  or  they  iiiay  bo 
created  by  nat  uralization. 

The  Constitution  does  not,  in  words,  say  who  shall  be  natnral-born  citizens.  Resort 
mnst  be  had  elsewhere  to  ascertain  that.  At  common  law,  with  the  nomenelaturo 
of  which  the  franiers  of  the  Constitution  were  familiar,  it  was  never  doubted  t hat 
all  children  born  in  a  country  of  i)arents  who  were  its  citizens  became  themselves, 
upon  their  birth,  citizens  also.  These  were  natives,  or  natural-born  citizens,  as  dis- 
tin<;uished  from  aliens  or  foreigners.  Some  authorities  go  further  and  im^ludti  as  citi- 
zens children  born  within  the  jurisdiction  without  reference  to  t  hi;  citizenship  of  their 
j»arents.  As  to  this  class  there  have  been  doubts,  but  never  as  to  the  lirst.  For  the 
purposes  of  this  case  it  is  not  necessary  to  solve  these  doubts.  It  is  suflicient  for 
everything  we  have  now  to  consider  that  all  children  born  of  citizen  parents  within 
the  Jurisdiction  are  themselves  citizens.  The  words  "all  childn'ii  "  are  certainly  as 
comprehensive,  when  used  in  this  connection,  as  "  all  persons,"  and  if  fcMuales  are  in- 
cluded in  the  last  they  must  be  in  the  first;  that  they  are  included  in  the  last  is  not 
denied.    In  fact  the  whole  argument  of  the  i)laintill's  proceeds  upon  that  idea. 

Under  the  power  to  adopt  a  uniform  system  of  natmalization  Congress,  as  early  as 
1790,  provided  '*  that  any  alien,  being  a  free  white  person,"  might  be  admitted  as  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  that  the  children  r)f  such  persons  so  nat urali/jMl, 
dwelling  within  the  United  States,  being  under  twenty-one  years  of  age  at  the  time 
of  such  naturalization,  should  also  be  consideied  ciiiziMisof  the  United  Stales,  and 
that  the  children  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  tliat  might  be  born  bey(»nd  the  sea, 
or  out  of  the  limits  of  the  United  States,  should  be  consulered  as  natural-lM)rn  citi- 
zens. These  provisions  thus  enactetl  have,  in  substance,  been  retained  in  all  the 
naturalization  laws  adopted  since.  In  IHaf),  however,  the  last  provision  was  some- 
what extended,  and  all  persons  theretofore  born  or  theieafter  to  bo  born  out  of  the 
limits  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States,  whose  fathers  were,  or  should  beat 
the  time  of  their  birth,  citizens  of  tho  United  States,  wore  declared  to  bo  citizens 
also. 

As  early  as  1804  it  was  enacted  by  Congress  that  when  any  alien  who  ha«l  deelar<'d 
his  int»Mition  to  become  a  citizen  in  the  manner  piovided  by  law  died  Itefoie  he 
was  actually  naturalized,  his  wi<low  and  chiMien  slionld  be  consideri'<l  as  citizens  «»f 
the  United  States,  and  entitled  to  all  rights  and  privileges  as  such. upon  taking  lln> 
necessary  oath;  and  in  18.');')  it  was  fiirt her  provided  t hat  any  woman  \>h<»  might  law- 
fully be  naturalized  under  the  existing  lawH,  married,  or  who  slum  Id  lu'  manied  to  a 
citizen  of  the  IJnitefl  States,  shouhl  b»>  d<  emed  ami  taken  to  ho  a  citiz»'n. 

From  this  it  is  appaiant  tliatfiom  tho  commencement  of  the  legislation  upon  thi-4 
subject  alien  women  and  alien  minors  could  be  made  citizens  by  nat ui a li/.at ion,  and 
wo  think  it  will  not  be  contended  that  this  would  have  ln-en  <bme  if  it  had  m»t  beeei 
supposed  that  native  women  and  native  minors  were  altcady  ciir/.ens  by  Itirtli. 

But  if  more  is  necessary  to  show  that  wonu'u  have  al\va\s  bem  considered  as  citi- 
zens the  same  as  men,  abundant  ])io()f  is  to  be  Ibiind  in  tlie  le^i.slai i v«'  and  judicial 
history  of  the  country.  Thus,  by  the  (Constitution,  t  he  juili<  iai  power  of  the  United 
States  is  made  to  ext«»nd  to  controversies  lu^t  ween  nt  i/ens  of  dillen-nt  States,  Under 
this  it  has  been  uniformly  held  that  tlu'  citizenship  iiei  «'Nsary  to  give  the  courts  of  Iho 
United  States  jurisdiction  of  a  cause  must  be  atUrmatively  shown  on  the  rtM'ord.  Iim 
existence  as  a  fact  may  be  i)ut  in  issue  and  tried.  Il  luuiid  not  toexi-^t  the  ca.-(^  must 
be  dismissed.    Notw  ithstanding  this  tho  recoitls  of  the  courts  are  full  of  cases  iu 

B.  Bep.  2543,  pt.  2  3 


• 


34  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

which  the  jurisdiction  depends  upon  the  citizenship  of  women,  and  not  one  can  be 
found,  we  think,  in  which  objection  was  made  on  that  account.  Certainly  uouo  can 
be  found  in  which  it  has  been  held  that  women  can  not  sue  or  be  sued  in  the  courts 
of  the  United  States.  Again,  at  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  in 
many  of  the  States  (and  in  some  probably  now)  aliens  could  not  inherit  or  transmit 
inheritance.  There  are  a  multitude  of  cases  to  be  found  in  which  the  question  has 
been  presented  whether  a  woman  was  or  was  not  an  alien,  and  as  such  capable  or 
incapable  of  inheritance,  but  in  no  one  has  it  been  insisted  thatiiiie  was  not  a  citizen 
because  she  was  a  woman.  On  the  contrary,  her  right  to  citizenship  has  been  in  all 
cases  assumed.  The  only  question  has  been  whether,  in  the  particular  case  under 
consideration,  she  had  availed  herself  of  the  right. 

In  the  legislative  department  of  the  Government  similar  proof  will  be  found.  Thus, 
in  the  pre-emption  laws,  a  widow,  "being  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,"  is  allowed 
to  make  settlement  on  the  public  lands  and  purchase  upon  the  terms  specified,  and 
women,  "  being  citizens  of  the  United  States,"  are  permitted  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  benefit  of  the  homestead  law. 

Other  proof  of  like  character  might  be  found,  but  certainly  more  can  not  be  neces- 
sary to  establish  the  fact  that  sex  has  never  been  made  one  of  the  elements  of  citizen- 
ship in  the  United  States.  In  this  respect  men  have  never  had  an  advantage  over 
women.  The  same  laws  precisely  apply  to  both.  The  fourteenth  amendment  did  not 
affect  the  citizenship  of  women  any  more  than  it  did  of  men.  In  this  particular, 
therefore,  the  rights  of  Mrs.  Minor  do  not  depend  upon  the  amendment.  She  has  al- 
ways been  a  citizen  from  her  birth,  and  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  immunities 
of  citizenship.  The  amendment  prohibited  the  State,  of  which  she  is  a  citizen,  from 
abridging  any  of  her  privileges  and  immunities  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States;' 
but  it  did  not  confer  citizenship  on  her.    That  she  had  before  its  adoption. 

If  the  tight  of  suffrage  is  one  of  the  necessary  privileges  of  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  then  the  constitution  and  laws  of  Missouri  conlining  it  to  men  are  in  viola- 
tion of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  as  amended,  and  consequently  void. 
The  direct  question  is  therefore  presented  whether  all  citizens  are  necessarily  voters. 

The  Constitution  does  not  define  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens.  For 
that  definition  we  must  look  elsewhere.  In  this  case  we  need  not  determine  what 
they  are,  but  only  whether  suffrage  is  necessarily  one  of  them. 

It  certainly  is  nowhere  made  so  in  express  terms.  The  United  States  has  no  voters 
in  the  States  of  its  own  creation.  The  elective  officers  of  the  United  States  are  all 
elected  directly  or  indirectly  by  State  voters.  The  members  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives are  chosen  by  the  people  of  the  States,  and  the  electors  in  each  State  must 
have  the  qualifications  requisite  for  electors  of  the  most  numerous  branch  of  the  State 
legislature.  Senators  are  to  be  chosen  by  the  legislatures  of  the  States,  and  neces- 
sarily the  members  of  the  legislature  required  to  make  the  choice  are  elected  by  the 
voters  of  the  State.  Each  State  must  appoint,  in  such  manner  as  the  legislature 
thereof  may  direct,  the  electors  to  elect  the  President  and  Vice-President.  The  times, 
places,  and  manner  of  holding  elections  for  Senators  and  Representatives  are  to  be 
prescribed  in  each  State  by  the  legislature  thereof;  but  Congress  may  at  any  time, 
by  law,  make  or  alter  such  regulations,  except  as  to  the  place  of  choosing  Senators. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  inquire  whether  this  power  of  supervision  thus  given  to  Con- 
gress is  sufficient  to  authorize  any  interference  with  tli  ■  State  laws  prescribing  the 
qualifications  of  voters,  for  no  such  interference  has  ever  been  atteaupted.  The  power 
of  the  State  in  this  particular  is  certainly  supreme  until  Congress  acts. 

The  amendment  did  not  add  lo  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  a  citizen.  It  sim- 
ply furnished  an  additional  guaranty  for  the  protection  of  such  as  ho  already  had. 
No  new  voters  were  necessarily  made  by  it.  Indirectly  it  may  have  had  that  effect 
because  it  may  have  increased  the  number  of  citizens  entitled  to  suffrage  under  the 
constitutions  and  laws  of  the  States,  but  it  operates  for  this  purpose,  if  at  all,  through 
the  States  and  the  State  laws,  and  not  directly  upon  the  citizen. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  we  think,  that  the  Constitution  has  not  added  the  right  of  suff- 
rage to  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizenship  as  they  existed  at  the  time  it  was 
adopted.  This  makes  it  proper  to  inquire  whether  sufi'rage  was  co-extensive  with 
the  citizenship  of  the  States  at  the  time  of  its  adoption.  If  it  was,  then  it  may  with 
force  be  argued  that  suffrage  was  one  of  the  rights  which  belongs  to  citizenship,  and 
in  the  enjoyment  of  which  every  citizen  must  be  protected;  but  if  it  was  not,  the 
contrary  may  with  propriety  be  assumed. 

When  the  Federal  Constitution  was  adopted  all  the  States,  with  the  exception  of 
Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut,  had  constitutions  of  their  own.  These  two  continued 
to  act  under  their  charters  from  the  Crown.  Upon  an  examination  of  those  constitu- 
tions we  find  that  in  no  State  were  all  citizens  permitted  to  vote.  Each  State  de- 
termined for  itself  who  should  have  that  power;  thus,  in  New  Hampshire,  "every 
male  inhabitant  of  each  town  and  parish  with  town  privileges  and  places  unincor- 
porated in  the  State,  of  twenty-one  years  of  a.ge  and  upwards,  excepting  paupers  and 
persons  excused  from  paying  taxes  at  their  own  request,"  were  its  voters;  in  Massa- 


WOMAN  SUFl'KAGE. 


35 


chnsetts,  "every  male  inhabitant  of  twiMU^'-oiui  years  of  a^o  and  upwards  liaviuj;  a 
freehold  estate  within  the  Coninion wealth  ot  tlu'-  annual  income  of  jC:J,  or  any  estate 
of  the  value  of  £G0;"  in  Rhode  Island,  -'such  as  are  admitted  free  of  the  company 
and  society"  of  the  colony;  in  Connecticut,  such  persons  as  had  *'  maturity  in  years, 
quiet  and  ])eaceahle  bi'havior,  a  civil  conversation,  and  40  shillinj;s  fniehold,  or  £10 
personal  estate,"  if  so  certified  hy  the  selcctMicn;  in  New  Voik,  "every  male  inhab- 
itant of  full  ago,  and  Avho  shall  have  personally  n'sidcd  within  one  of  the  counties 
of  the  State  for  six  months  immediately  preceding  the  day  of  eh;ctiou,  *  *  *  if 
during  the  time  aforesaid  he  shall  have  been  a  freehohler,  possessing  a  freehold 
of  the  value  of  £'20  within  the  county,  or  have  rented  a  tenement  therein  of  the 
yearly  value  of  40  shillings.  ;nid  been  rated  and  actually  paid  taxes  to  the  State;" 
iu  New  Jersey,  "all  inhabitants  *  *  *  of  full  age  who  are  worth  £50,  procla- 
inatiou  money,  clear  estate  in  the  same,  and  have  resided  in  the  county  iu  which 
they  claim  a  vote  for  twelve  months  immediately  preceding  the  election  ;  "  in  Penn- 
sylvania, "every  freeman  of  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  having  resided  in  the  State 
two  years  next  before  the  election,  and  within  that  time  ])aid  a  State  or  county  tax 
which  shall  have  been  assessed  at  least  six  months  before  the  election;"  in  Dela- 
ware and  Virginia,  "as  exercised  by  law  at  i)re8ent;"  in  Maryland,  "  all  freemen 
above  twenty-one  years  of  age  having  a  freehold  of  50  acres  of  land  in  the  county  in 
which  they  otfer  to  vote  and  residing  therein,  and  all  freemen  having  property  in  the 
State  above  the  value  of  £:50  current  money,  and  having  resided  iu  the  county  in  which 
they  offer  to  vote  one  whole  year  next  preceding  the  election ;  "  in  North  Carolina,  for 
senators,  "all  freemen  of  the  age  of  twenty-ou«  years  who  have  been  inhabitants 
of  any  one  county  within  the  State  twelve  months  immediately  preceding  the  day 
of  election,  and  i)()ssessed  ot  a  freehold  within  the  same  county  of  50  acres  of  lanilfor 
six  months  next  before  and  at  the  day  of  election,"  and  for  the  members  of  the  house 
of  comujons  "all  freemen  of  the  age  of  twenty-one  years  who  have  been  inhabitants 
in  any  one  county  within  the  State  twelve  months  innnediately  preceding  the  day  of 
any  election,  and  shall  have  paid  public  taxes ; "  in  South  Carolina,  "every  free  white 
man  of  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  being  a  citizen  of  the  State  and  having  resided 
therein  two  years  previous  to  the  day  of  election,  and  who  hath  a  freehold  of  50  acres  of 
hind,  or  a  town  lot  of  which  ho  hath  been  legally  seized  and  possessed  at  least  six 
months  before  such  election,  or  (not  having  such  freeholder  town  lot)  hath  been  a  res- 
ident within  the  election  district  in  which  he  offers  to  give  his  vote  six  months  btifore 
suid  tdection,  and  hath  paid  a  tax  the  preceding  year  of  3  shillings  sterling  towards  the 
sui)port  of  tile  government;"  and  in  Georgia,  such  "citizens  and  inhabitants  of  the 
Stale  as  shall  have  attained  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  and  shall  have  ])aid  tax  for 
the  year  next  preceding  the  election,  and  shall  have  resided  six  months  within  the 
county." 

In  this  condition  of  the  law  in  respect  to  sntyrage  in  the  several  States  it  can  not  for 
a  moment  be  doubted  that  if  it  had  been  intended  to  make  all  citizens  of  the  United 
States  voters,  the  frainers  of  the  Constitution  would  not  have  left  it  to  implication. 
So  important  a  change  in  the  condition  of  citizenship  as  it  actually  existed,  if  in- 
tended, would  have  been  expressly  declared. 

liut  if  further  proof  is  necessary  to  show  that  no  such  change  was  intended,  it  can 
easily  be  found  both  in  and  out  of  the  Constitution.  By  article  4,  section  2,  it  is 
I)rovided  that  "citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  ami  im- 
munities of  citizens  in  the  several  States."  If  snllrage  is  necessarily  a  part  of  citizen- 
ship, then  the  citiz<Mis  of  each  State  must  bo  entitled  to  vote  in  the  several  States 
precisely  as  their  (;itizens  are.  This  is  more  than  asserting  that  they  may  change 
their  residenci!  and  become  citizens  of  the  State  and  thus  be  voters.  It  goes  to  the 
extent  of  insisting  that  while  retaining  their  original  citizenship  they  may  vote  in 
any  State.  This,  we  think,  has  never  been  claimed.  And  again,  by  the  very  terms 
of  the  amendment  we  have  been  considering  (the  fourteenth),  "  IvejuestMitati ves  shall 
be  apportioned  among  the  several  States  according  to  their  respective  nnmb»'rs, 
eotmling  the  whole  number  of  persons  in  each  State,  (ixclnding  Indians  n<)t  taxed. 
Hilt  when  the  right  to  vote  at  any  election  for  the  ehoiets  of  electors  for  rresident 
and  Vice-l'iesideiit  of  the  United  States,  Representatives  in  C«)ngress,  the  executive 
and  judicial  ollic<'rs  of  a  State,  or  the  members  of  the  legislature  ther<'of  is  <lenied  to 
any  of  the  male  inhabitants  of  such  State,  being  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  citizens 
of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  way  abridgei,  except  for  participation  in  tht^  rebellion, 
or  other  crimes,  the  basis  of  re[>rcsentati()n  therein  shall  be  re<lueed  in  the  proportion 
which  the  number  of  such  male  cit  izens  shall  bear  tothii  whole  number  of  male  citizens 
twtMity-one  years  of  age  in  such  State."  Why  this,  if  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  the 
legislature  to  deny  the  right  of  suffrage  to  some  male  inhabitants  f  Ami  if  siitlrago 
was  necessarily  one  of  the  absolute  rights  of  citizenship,  why  conline  the  operatitui 
of  the  limitation  to  male  inhabitants  f  Women  and  children  are,  as  wo  have  seen, 
"  persons."  They  are  eountetl  in  the  enumeration  upon  which  the  apportionment  is 
to  be  made,  but  if  tlu\v  were  ncci'ssarily  vott'is  Ix'eause  of  their  citizenship,  unles.i 
clearly  excluded,  why  inllict  the  penalty  for  the  exclusitui  of  males  alone  f   Clearly  no 


36 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


such  form  of  words  would  have  beeu  selected  to  express  the  idea  here  Indicated  if  suf- 
frajje  was  the  absolute  right  of  all  citizens. 

And  still  again,  after  the  adoption  of  the  fourteenth  amendment,  it  was  deemed 
necessary  to  adopt  a  fifteenth,  as  follows :  The  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States 
to  vote  shall  not  be  denied  or  abridged  by  the  United  Stat.;-s,  or  by  any  State,  on  ac- 
count of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude."  The  fourteenth  amendment 
had  already  provided  that  no  State  should  make  or  enforce  any  law  which  should 
abridge  the  privileges  or  immunities  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States.  If  suffrage 
was  one  of  these  privileges  or  immunities,  why  amend  the  Constitution  to  prevent  its 
being  denied  on  account  of  race,  etc.  ?  Nothing  is  more  evident  than  that  the  greater 
must  include  the  less,  and  if  all  were  already  protected  why  go  through  with  the  form 
of  amending  the  Constitution  to  protect  a  part? 

It  IS  true  that  the  United  States  guaranties  to  every  State  a  republican  form  of 
government.  It  is  also  true  that  no  State  can  pass  a  bill  of  attainder,  and  that  no 
person  can  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due  process  of  law.  All 
these  several  provisions  of  the  Constitution  must  be  construed  in  connection  with  the 
other  parts  of  the  instrument,  and  in  the  light  of  the  surrounding  circumstances. 

The  guaranty  is  of  a  republican  form  of  government.  No  particular  government 
is  designated  as  republican  ;  neither  is  the  exact  form  to  be  guarantied  in  any  man- 
ner especially  designated.  Here,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  instrument,  we  are  com- 
pelled to  resort  elsewhere  to  ascertain  what  was  intended. 

The  guaranty  necessarily  implies  a  duty  on  the  part  of  the  States  themselves  to 
provide  such  a  government.  All  the  States  had  governments  when  the  Constitution 
was  adopted.  In  all  the  people  participated  to  some  extent,  through  their  repre- 
sentatives elected  in  the  DJanner  specially  provided.  These  governments  the  Con- 
st ilution  did  not  change.  They  were  accepted  precisely  as  they  were,  and  it  is, 
1  licrcfore,  to  be  presumed  that  they  were  such  as  it  was  the  duty  of  the  States  to  pro- 
vide. Thus  we  have  unmistakable  evidence  of  what  was  republican  in  form,  within 
the  meaning  of  that  term  as  employed  in  the  Constitution. 

As  has  been  seen,  all  the  citizens'of  the  States  were  not  invested  with  the  right  of 
suffrage.  In  all,  save  perhaps  New  Jersey,  this  right  w^as  only  bestowed  upon  men 
and  not  upon  all  of  them.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  certainly  now  too  late  to 
contend  that  a  government  is  not  republican,  within  the  meaning  of  this  guaranty 
in  the  Constitution,  because  women  are  not  made  voters. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  other  provisions  just  quoted.  Women  were  excluded 
from  suffrage  in  nearly  all  the  States  by  the  express  provision  of  their  constitutions 
and  laws.  If  that  had  been  equivalent  to  a  bill  of  attainder,  certainly  its  abrogation 
would  not  have  been  left  to  implication.  Nothing  less  than  express  language  would 
have  been  employed  to  effect  so  radical  a  change.  So  also  of  the  amendment  which 
declares  that  no  person  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due 
process  of  law,  adopted  as  it  was  as  early  as  1791.  If  suffrage  was  intended  to  be  in- 
cluded within  its  obligations,  language  better  adapted  to  express  that  intent  would 
most  certainly  have  been  employed.  The  right  of  suftiage,  when  granted,  will  be  pro- 
tected. He  who  has  it  can  only  be  deprived  of  it  by  due  process  of  law,  but  in  order 
to  claim  protection  he  must  first  show  that  he  has  the  right. 

But  we  have  already  sufficiently  considered  the  proof  found  upon  the  inside  of  the 
Constitution.    That  upon  the  outside  is  equally  etfective. 

The  Constitution  was  submitted  to  the  States  for  adoption  in  1787,  and  was  ratified 
by  nine  States  in  1788,  and  finally  by  the  thirteen  original  States  in  1790.  Vermont 
was  the  first  new  State  admitted  to  the  Union,  and  it  came  in  under  a  constitution 
which  conferred  the  right  of  suffrage  only  upon  men  of  the  full  age  of  twenty-one 
years,  having  resided  in  the  State  for  the  space  of  one  whole  year  next  before  the 
election,  and  who  were  of  quiet  and  peaceable  behavior.  This  was  in  1791.  The  next 
vear,  1792,  Kentucky  followed  with  a  constitution  confining  the  right  of  sufirage  to 
free  male  citizens  of  the  age  of  twenty-one  years  w^ho  had  resided  in  the  State  two 
years  or  in  the  county  in  which  they  offered  to  vote  one  year  next  before  the  election. 
Then  followed  Tennessee,  in  1796,  with  voters  of  freemen  of  the  age  of  twenty-one 
years  and  upwards,  possessing  a  freehold  in  the  county  wherein  they  may  vote,  and 
being  inhabitants  of  the  State  or  freemen  being  inhabitants  of  any  one  county  in  the 
State  six  months  immediately  preceding  the  day  of  election. 

But  we  need  not  particularize  further.  No  new  State  has  ever  been  admitted  to 
the  Union  which  has  conferred  the  right  of  suffrage  upon  women,  and  this  has  never 
been  considered  a  valid  objection  to  her  admission.  On  the  contrary,  as  is  claimed 
in  ihe  argument,  the  right  of  suffrage  was  withdrawn  from  women  as  early  as  1807  in 
the  State  of  New  Jersey,  without  any  attempt  to  obtain  the  interference  of  the  United 
States  to  prevent  it.  Since  then  the  governments  of  the  insurgent  States  have  been 
reorganized  under  a  requirement  that  before  their  Representatives  could  be  admitted 
to  seats  in  Congress  they  must  have  adopted  new  constitutions,  republican  inform. 
In  no  one  of  these  constitutions  was  siUfrage  conferred  upon  womea,  and  yet  the 
States  Irave  all  beeu  restored  to  their  original  positions  as  States  in  the  Union, 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


37 


Besides  this,  citizeiiHliip  has  not  in  all  cases  Lcen  made  a  condition  iMct  cdcnt  to  tlio 
enjoynjent  of  the  li^lit  of  Hiillra'^e.  TIiuh,  in  MisHouri,  pt'iKons  of  f()it  i;;ii  birth  who 
liave  declared  their  intention  to  become  citiz»'ns  of  the  United  Stat»'H  may  imhUt  vat- 
tain  circnnis(anc(^8  vot«*.  The  samo  provision  is  to  l)e  found  in  t  he  <  oii.si  i  t  nt  ion  of 
Alabama,  Arkansas,  Florida,  Geor;;ia,  Indiana,  Kansas,  MinncHota,  and  I'cxas. 

Certainly,  if  the  conrts  can  consider  any  (juestion  KctlU'd,  this  is  one.  For  nearly 
ninety  years  the  people  have  acted  npon  tiie  idea  that  tho  Constitution,  when  it  con- 
ferred citizenship,  did  not  necessarily  confer  the  right  of  siillra;;o.  If  uniform  prac- 
tice, lon<^  continued,  can  settle  the  construction  of  so  imjioi  tant  an  instrument  as  tho 
Constitution  of  tho  United  States  confessedly  is,  niost  certainly  it  has  been  done  here. 
Our  province  is  to  decide  what  the  law  is,  and  not  to  declare  what  it  should  be. 

We  have  given  this  case  tho  careful  consideration  its  inii)ortance  <lemands.  If  tho 
law  is  wrong,  it  ought  to  be  changed,  but  tho  power  for  that  is  not  with  us.  Tho 
arguments  addressed  to  us  bearing  npon  such  a  view  of  tln^  Hiibjecl  may  perhaps  bo 
sutlicient  to  induce  those  having  the  power  to  make  the  alteration;  but  they  ought 
not  to  be  permitted  to  influence  our  judgment  in  determining  the  present  rights  of 
the  parties  now  litigating  before  us.  No  argument  as  to  woman's  ne»-d  of  sutlrage 
can  be  considered.  We  can  only  act  upon  her  rights  as  they  exist.  Jt  is  not  for  us 
to  look  at  the  hardship  of  withholding.  Our  duty  is  at  an  end  if  we  find  it  is  within 
the  power  of  a  State  to  withhold. 

Being  unanimously  of  the  opinion  that  the  Constitution  of  the  Unitcul  States  does 
not  confer  tho  right  of  suftrago  upon  any  one,  and  that  the  constitution  and  laws  of 
the  several  States  which  commit  that  important  trust  tu  men  alone  are  not  necessarily 
void,  we  atiirm  the  judgment. 


o 


I 


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